


Going Home

by SilverWolfCub



Series: Welp [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ...Warf?, Alternate Reality, Centered around them, Did I forget to mention that?, Dimesions, Dysfunctional Family (not really), Ego-Centric?, Egos, Egos are kinda family?, Felix pops up in there at some point, First time tagging, Good angst keeps the story going, Is it Google or Googleplier?, Souls, Steph does too, The actual people are there but they’re souls, The other egos are mentioned - Freeform, The other world is post-apocalyptic, There’s angst on the regular, They tolerate each other, You’ll get it if you read, how to tag?, power of belief, powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2019-10-01 15:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 75,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17246951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWolfCub/pseuds/SilverWolfCub
Summary: “Code name- The Demons. Your direct objective is to detain Number 13.1 and construct a successful way of keeping classified information out of his reach. A secondary objective is the containment of the other demons.”“Yes, sir.”Archive recallThe Leader. Powerful, cold, but loyal. Number 4.1.The Joker. Deadly, random, but loud. Number 1.14.The Scientist. Smart, calculative, but insane. Number 13.1.The Siren. Quiet, hidden, but manipulative. Number 14.1.Note-They were created for the wrong reasons, and now they are on the loose. We must fix what we have caused.Before the world ends.





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the end is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t ever going to write for this fandom, because it’s not my style of writing, but a challenge is a great way to better understand your abilities!  
> And besides, I don’t like writing about real people. I found a loophole though... I’m writing about egos in another reality. Completely different. Completely.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Minor Characters- Death. Mental trauma  
> Major Characters- Kidnapping?

The problem started when the government created a vortex to another dimension. To another reality.

“Hey, look at this, you guys are internet famous in this place.”

Agent Warfstache looked up from the pencil he was twirling on his finger, glancing idly at Agent Dove as the man spoke. Warf barely raised an eyebrow to the exclamation, but Agent Septic slammed his coffee cup on the counter, standing up in excitement. “Seriously? Dude, that was a childhood dream of mine!”

Dove nodded. “Yeah, other you calls himself Jacksepticeye, he even thought of a similar name.”

Septic grinned, but it wasn’t him who spoke next. “As cool as the thought of having a counterpart is, we won’t be able to meet them.”

Septic rolled his eyes at the man sitting in a desk at the side of the office room. “Don’t take the fun out of the idea!”

The theorist just shrugged, taking a drink of his soda. “I’m just giving you statistics. I’ve already looked through the government’s databases, and they’re not letting anyone but the higher ups look through. What intrigues me is how you know about the other dimension us?”

Dove laughed, albeit a little nervously. It ended abruptly when Warf stopped twirling his pencil, placing it on the desk and leveling a look at Agent Dove. The room quieted, not because the others were wary of Warf (only Agent Dove was, the others had learned long ago that there was nothing to be scared about with him) but because they wanted to see where he would go with this.

“How do you know about it…” He started slowly. “And why are you telling us?”

Dove nervously swallowed. “I… just thought you would like to know about it-“

“Lies.”

The last man in the room finally turned around. Agent Song’s desk was in the corner closest to The Theorist, away from the large window that shined light behind Warf’s back. Agent Dove hadn’t even realized he was there.

He gulped. Glancing around, with beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, he spoke. “You’re in danger-“

A hole appeared in his head.

A single bead of blood emerged.

Agent Dove fell limp to the ground.

 

X.

 

Months had passed after his murder, when the problem came up again. Agent Warf had the Theorist find out as much as possible about the vortex, but not much was found. The government didn’t even keep the information about the vortex in the regular databases, it seemed.

They hadn’t heard anything about said Vortex until a leader of the government appeared at their office door.

“Men.” He nodded to them as they stood to salute him. “Stand down, I just have a few things to say. You all know of the other dimension we connected to. You all also know of your… counterparts, we will call them, from the other dimension.”

The Theorist looked at Agent Song with an ‘I told you so’ look to him, which made the latter groan. The man had said only a few minutes after Dove’s death, ‘the government is hiding it from us especially.’ He’s probably more happy that his theory was right then the fact that it was _right_ , which spelled trouble for them.

“Internet Stars, we heard.” Septic answered from where he usually perched, sitting on Warf’s head desk. Even though he had a desk of his own, he only used it on hard cases. “What about it?”

“There’s something special we’ve discovered about your counterparts. They have completely different energy signatures, compared to everyone else in that world. This energy manifests in times where they pretend to be someone else, more specifically, alter egos that they made up for their fans.”

“The belief theory?” The Theorist asked curiously. “When enough belief can make something real?”

The man nodded. “That’s what we think. We want to get more information on this, but we do not want to tamper with the alternate reality more then we have to.”

“You want us… to either check it out ourselves, or you want to check us out instead.” The Theorist finished, causing the man to get a little miffed. He looked down at the folder he’s holding, and in that moment, the other three grin slightly, amused. When he flexes his intellect on others, it can be amusing.

“Yes.” The man said after a moment. “We would like to compare their energy signatures to yours, to see compatibility.”

Warf frowned at that. Compatibility for what? “I’m going to have to decline, sir. Neither me nor my team will be doing anything that has to do with our counterparts. The results could be-“

“Disastrous.” The Theorist finished for him, and Warf could be mad, but he was use to it. “World shattering, dimension breaking. We don’t know what we’re dealing with in alternate realities.”

The man sighed, but seemed to understand. “I thought so, at least I asked. Now, onto the real reason I’m here…”

 

X.

 

They should’ve known better. The man gave up to easily, and they just accepted the next mission (which sounded to easy as well) and went on with it without really thinking about it.

They were captured somewhere up North, in the middle of a heavy blizzard. They had their parkas and gloves taken and thrown away once they reached a warehouse, as to ensure death if they tried to escape. They had even found The Theorist, from where he was camped, over watching the mission.

They knew there was a mole before the man even walked out from his office.

“The hard way it is.”

 

X.

 

They had gone to their counterparts and taken their energy, sucking it all up and probably comatosing them in the process. It didn’t matter to them, they didn’t really care.

Over time, over the months, they transferred that energy over to them. Whereas the counterparts had gotten use to it as the belief rose, the agents were injected it, then left to either live or die, alone and unaware of their constant monitoring.

That energy had its own personality, something dark and disturbing, which had festered inside of their counterparts for months or years. But there was something else as well. Something… else…

Over time, the pain and stress of the new energy slowly collapsed each agent’s mind, decomposing them into crippled messes as the energy enveloped their souls and crushed their minds to make space for themselves.

But, there was something else…

The agents were no longer in control, no longer coherent to the world around them. Half a year in, scientists flocked to the monitoring rooms to watch Agent Septic cackle at the camera, staring back at them with a sinister grin, the most any of them had done in months.

The agents were stripped of their old names, only called numbers now. They developed powers. They were tested like lab rats. But, there was something else.

“You can hear him too… right?” A scientist recorded one of them one night. The quiet one rarely ever talked. He might not even have a power.

“I can.”

“Why are they here?”

“Because they messed up.”

“...Just another reason to _kill them all._ ”

The scientist had startled, giving a shock to the quiet one and racing to tell their superiors.

“They were the best team we had!” The official head of government yelled as he stalked through the secluded warehouse. “If you costed us our best team for nothing, I will personally shoot you in the head.”

The man didn’t waver. “You won’t be disappointed, Marsh.” He laughed. “This went better than we could have ever expected. We have our own secret weapon, something even more devastating than a nuke.”

Marsh raised an eyebrow. “And what can be more devastating than a nuke?”

“A machine gun that never breaks.” The man chipped. “That never runs out of bullets. That’s mobile and impossible for enemies to track. That cannot be killed.”

They entered the cells, “You’re saying that you made our agents immortal?”

“Better, sir. Let’s get started. Number 4.1, The Leader, previously known as Agent Warf.”

Marsh walked up to the glass, temporarily forgetting his army posture in surprise. The man inside was not the man he remembered. Warf was still silent and broody, but now he wasn’t doing it as a joke, like he use to do to scare the new employees. Warf was leaning against the wall by his desk, glaring not at him, but at the man behind him. Shadows lashed at the floor underneath him, some climbing up his body. “What did they do…” Marsh whispered.

“Number 4.1 is the most powerful of the group, with the ability of using shadows to either travel or destroy. He can travel up to 100 meters away, give or take, and he can also mess with sensory traits if near enough. In testing, he was able to destroy 500 dummies within an square acre without moving a finger, in exactly 1.2 seconds.”

Marsh moved forward, past Warf’s cell, jumping back when a knife slammed into the glass he was next to. Agent Septic cackled at him from the other side, sticking on incredibly long tongue out at him in childish glee. “Number 1.14, The Joker, previously known as Agent Septic. Number 1.14 can teleport himself, for around a far as number 4.1. He can materialize a certain knife to him from any distance, and is skilled in most forms of combat. Using the data we gain from them in the other dimension, we assume that what he does is ‘glitch’, in and out of reality, whenever his form flickers. It usually only flickers when he’s excited.”

Marsh might be the head of government, but he had a weak stomach and a good heart, so the blood smears in Septic’s cell made him queasy. “Who’s blood is that?”

The man glanced over. “His own. He was testing his own healing factor and immortality. Bit of a masochist. The next two, on the other hand, didn’t really have a set power in the other dimension…”

The man continued walking forward, which made Marsh follow silently. The next man was laying on the bed, barely paying attention as several items floated in the air, two calculators, a notepad and pen, and a world map. “Number 13.1, the Scientist, previously known as the Theorist. His power lies in technology and the mind. He has limited telekinesis, but his IQ’s above genius level and he can interact with technology by touching it.”

“Does he make all of that appear from thin air as well?” Marsh asked.

“We had to give that to him.” The man replied offhandedly. “He kept on moving them over to his cell, and would break anyone’s wrist that would try to take it away. But that’s the limit of his telekinesis, sadly.”

Marsh moved over once more, before shuddering to a stop. The last man sat crossed legged in the far corner, half of his face covered in shadow. “Lastly, Number 14.1, the Voice, previously known as Agent Song, and right now, our biggest mystery. Number 14.1’s power has to do with sound, but we don’t know much, because he rarely speaks. He can lull people asleep and manipulate people to a certain degree to do things with his voice, but we don’t know what else he can do.”

All of a sudden, he moved, looking up at them for the first time. Something about it made Marsh freeze.

The agent smiled, and in a whisper as clear as day, spoke. “You shouldn’t be here, I’m sorry.”

The entire warehouse went down.

In the darkness, the first alarm blared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never mind, I regret nothing.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The belief theory in work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bold Italics is either the egos talking in their heads or that power is coming from their voices.
> 
> Italics is either the souls talking or its emphasis on something.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Major Characters- Soul eating/Mind crushing (you’ll see later)  
> Minor Characters- Vague Dismemberment

This first started when the YouTube creators decided to get together to plan a collab. Another channel called Random Encounters asked if they wanted to participate in something they were making, and Dark guessed they were getting together to plan it out.

Dark hadn’t really paid too much attention to their plans, he had rather stay in his mindspace. He only started to watch when Anti’s host showed up, (why he was in America, he doesn’t know-) if only to spread his aura a little more.

He wasn’t afraid of the glitch in any means. The aura was more of a greeting then a statement. Maybe at the beginning of his manifestation, but he had long gotten over any wariness he had.

When he was first created, he was just a mass of shadow, a torrent of ideas desperately trying to connect themselves together into a coherent thought. No one knew who he was, so no one could place him.

Mark soon found out about it, and set to giving the shadow some ground to stand on, creating Darkiplier content. At the beginning, he had no murderous content towards his host, but as different theories and thoughts and _belief_ came out centered around _him_ , he became swept up in it. He was a demon. He hated Mark. He wanted to _kill Mark…_

Then other ideas, less in size but there nonetheless, started to confuse him into clarity. Some people didn’t think he was mad at Mark, but _fictional Mark_. Some people didn’t think he was a killer. It was small, but it was enough to pull him out of it before he did something he regretted. Mark was his host, if he died, Dark would die as well.

That made Dark hypersensitive to danger of any kind.

Which almost saved them.

Mat was going on about one of their favorite (insert sarcasm if wanted) pastimes, FNAF. Apparently, a DLC for one of the games was coming out, a leaked footage showed Easter eggs for most fnaf channels. He had already spotted his own and Jack’s.

“There’s a crown with a mustache on it somewhere in the restaurant.” Mark joked cockily, crossing his arms with a grin as they moved across town.

“Bow down to the king.” Nate snorted.

Mark grinned wider. “Probably on the office chair. Put the King on his throne-“ he froze, frowning.

They all stopped. “What’s wrong?”

That’s the last clear memory he has on the entire scene. There was a gas at some point, which completely enveloped Dark’s senses. He remembers the first tug on his being, something that threw him against the wall, closest to the exit of the mind.

He growled in annoyance, moving to take enough control to get rid of whatever the nucesnce was when he first felt it. Whatever was taking his energy, was accidentally taking Mark’s soul as well, since that’s where he stored all of it.

Changing tactics instantly, he wrapped his entire being around the soul before it was battered or broken, taking the brunt of the force.

It was easy for whoever did this afterwards.

The next time he really had influence was when he entered another man’s mind. A part of his energy had been cut from him, barely a sliver but enough to weaken him. The man was his host, but a counterpart, or so the man called it, of him. It made it harder to do what he did next, but for the survival of him and his host, he destroyed the man’s mind, throwing it down a metaphorical trash can. That left enough space for Dark and his host’s soul to settle.

But he didn’t have his host’s mind. Only the soul.

The imprint of everything he was, was protected with him. His mind would have to be protected by modern medicine.

And he went on with that until his host’s soul took the crippled mind out of the trash and started using it to communicate.

**_Wow, you stooped low enough to actually use someone else’s destroyed mind?_ **

_Shut up._ Mark grumbled, his soul brightening for a moment. _I’m bored. You won’t let me see or feel what’s happening_.

**_For your own good, I assure you_** **.**

They were gone for months, and the longer they were gone, the more likely their bodies wouldn’t be there when they get back. They needed to leave.

The men never understood the true power they had.

All Mad had to do was snap his fingers.

Dark wasn’t as knowledgeable when it came to the other two ‘egos’. They weren’t as well known, and more of a talked of then used belief. They didn’t show much power while in their host, Mat’s senses were heightened and Nate’s voice was a little _too_ soothing, but nothing to obvious.

They were storing power, instead of extruding it, like he and Anti did. They didn’t have enough to spare, but by saving, they had climbed up close to their own level. **_Impressive._**

_What’s impressive?_

He never got an answer.

It took an hour at most to finally leave. Mad had spent time absorbing information from the computers they passed on the way, while Anti and Mare had too much fun killing people (in their own ways).

Half of the warehouse was torn to shreds before Anti first stepped into the snow. He threw a amputated limb from his hand and watched it fly, hands hitting his hips with a cackle. “Time to get back home!”

 

 

A scientist ducked under a sparking wire, holding the small jar of energy close to herself. She stopped in front of a machine, opening said jar and pouring the contents into the machine.

She waited in silence for a moment when the machine booted up.

She smiled.

“Okay Google.”

“... _Yeeeess?_ ”

 

EXTRA

 

**Power levels**

**Dark-** Controls shadows, and travels with them. How far is unknown. Cold and calculating. Danger level, **8.5.**

**Anti-** Glitches in and out of existence, teleports. How far is unknown. Can summon a certain knife to him from anywhere. Danger level, **6.5.** Unpredictability and psychopathic nature ups danger level to **7.9**

**Mad-** Telekinesis, unknown how strong. Can control technology without contact. High IQ. Danger level, **8.**  Curiosity and unwillingness to destroy something he finds interesting lowers danger level to **7.**

**Mare-** Sonic scream, able to burst eardrums. Fatal if done long enough. Manipulation through voice. Short term manipulation through talking, long term manipulation through singing. Danger level, **8.**  Unwillingness to use voice lowers level to **6.5.**

Note, up Mad and Mare’s danger level 1.5 points whenever they mentally lose it.

 

**_Bold Italics_** is either the egos talking in their heads or that power is coming from their voices.

_Italics_ is either the souls talking or its emphasis on something.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note- Tell me If Mare’s manipulation doesn’t make sense, because it’s important.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mad likes information... maybe just a little to much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read end note please.  
>  
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> None?

MadPat wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t stronger, nor did he have a super special ability, but he had his brain and to him, it’s importance matched that of Dark’s shadows when it came to power.

While contained, he spent his own time gathering knowledge on the place, finding out other secret experiments they had going on as well as some very… incriminating evidence locked up in the databases. Scientists knew of this, but could do very little to stop him. He had a cell which no one ever went into, and in that cell, he was king.

So he wasn’t special because of powers, he was special because of what he knew. The American people would just love to know about not only the human testing, but the agreement with other countries, allowing their smugglers free passageway with their drugs and diseases. Not to mention the fact that he can easily prove false several things the government had said to the people.

This is why the government wanted him back especially. They have four of them, losing one won’t be to much of a problem if it gets rid of loose ends in the process.

And Mad knew this.

He felt giddy just thinking about this.

Finally… some **_fun._ **

They had been driving over snow for half an hour, Mare at the wheel and Mad in the passenger seat. He had snatched an important looking tablet before he left, glancing it over as the foggy blizzard up ahead hit their windshield.

The tablet wasn’t as important as it looked, but it told Mad almost exactly where they were in the world, and the date.

He was about to take apart the tablet when something caught his eyes. “OooOOoO.”

Anti draped himself over his seat, obviously bored. “What?”

“Hush hush, secrets secrets.” Mad answered with a cold giggle, swiping through folders. “Secrets keep the world from ‘sploding.”

Anti gave him a look. “What is wit ye and tah world explodin’?”

Whenever Anti got annoyed, his accent peaked, Mad had noticed. “I like inevitable outcomes. Like milk and butter.”

Anti leveled him with another look, knife picking at his hair. “Fooking hate when they go all crazy…”

“They’ll revert back sooner or later.” Dark muttered from his seat, staring at the window. “Remember Anti, they’re-“

“-Not as fully formed as us, yeah yeah.” Anti cut him off with a grumble, ignoring Dark’s glare. “I say we ditch em.”

“They’re useful.” Dark said boredly, like he’s had the conversation a dozen times. He probably has, Anti always gets annoyed when the two are like this. “And they know where we’re going. If we leave them, they can ruin our entire plan.”

Anti leaned back, crossing his arms with a frown as he looked outside. He only stayed there for a moment, before going back to twirling his knife. “Then let’s kill them. No chances then.”

“You act as if we can’t hear you.” Mad spoke from the front. “And you don’t know how to kill us, do you?”

Anti snorted. “Like you do?”

“Yes.” Mad spoke right after he finished. “I do.”

And thusly, the last reason why he was different. He had known a way to kill them all by day one, mostly because Matthew had known a way of getting rid of the egos before any of this had even happened, he had just added onto it.

He felt his host’s soul shift uncomfortably at Mad’s thoughts, like it was trying to move away from him. That just made him laugh even more.

Suddenly, Mare slammed on the breaks, jerking all of them forward and throwing Anti into the seat in front of him. Mare turned towards Mad, eyes darkening. “ **_Why do you know how to kill us?!_ ** **”**

**“** **_Control your damn voice!”_ ** Dark almost bellowed from the back, causing Mare to flinch. Mad scratched his ear, not surprised to feel a line of blood emerging from it. Dark sighed, exhaling before turning back on Mad. “Now, why do you know?”

“Because they know I know.” For the first time, Mad’s smile wasn’t crazy, but completely set, his dark eyes glittering with intelligence. “It’s nothing we haven’t already known- if our host dies, we do too, I just know a simple way of doing it. Besides, I want them to target me.”

“Why ta fuck do ye want that?” Anti muttered. “Because no one ever pays attention te ye back in our world?”

“I don’t care for an audience.” Mad growled. “I care for new discoveries. We’re in an alternate reality where France and Spain aren’t countries and America has land in Europe. Call me curious.”

“Your curiosity will be the death of your host.” Dark warned. “And if it puts mine in danger, I will find a way to silence you, **permanently**.”

Mad shrugged. “Just a lil explorin. If they catch me, they catch me. Hell, it might even be faster then getting back ourselves. They could fly me straight to the vortex.”

The car quieted for a moment as the other three thought that over. Mad let them sit on it, reaching over to the radio and pulling off a big chunk of it, thumbing it over in his hands before taking it apart, doing the same with the tablet.

The car drove along the road quietly, until Mare turned to look at him. “I’ll go with you.”

Mad raised an eyebrow, that didn’t sound to logical for him. “Why?”

“I can assure that we’ll head straight to the vortex.” The car bumped as they finally hit road, and Mare gunned it down the icy ground. “And we’ll need a way to get back into our host’s bodies once this is all over. You’ll need a distraction, if you want to get all the necessary parts and plans. They’ll never take an eye off you if you’re there by yourself.”

“Yer suggestin splitting up?” Anti asked incredulously. “Weh don’ even know where ta vortex is!”

“We’re in Russia right now.” Dark said, looking outside. “But we had Americans working on us. You said America held land in Europe? What country do they hold?”

Mad took a second, thinking. “All of Portugal and half of Spain. The rest of Spain is called Portugal, as far as I’ve heard. This world’s map is quite different from ours- Japan holds almost all of China, and Korea holds the rest. Britain and Germany split France down the middle, and Africa isn’t just a continent, but a country as well. Not to mention several completely new countries. Fascinating.”

“From the memories this body has left-“ Dark cracked his neck. “-I’m almost certain that the Vortex will be in what was Portugal. The rest of America seems to be…”

“A war zone.” Anti finished, closing his eyes. “‘S like the walkin’ dead out there, all of the ‘new world’ is infected.”

Mad would love to tell them that the government allowed the smuggling that caused the infection to leave a secluded area. Would love to tell American, what was left of Canadian, and the central and Latin American countries’ citizens still around about it.

Right after the thought, a spotlight from above hit their car. Anti looked up. “Well then, here’s yer ride!”

Mad scoffed. “It would be way too early to go back now without causing suspicion!”

The silent helicopter above stayed far from the ground, keeping their lights off, probably to stop Dark’s shadows from destroying them instantly. They moved towards the front of the car, opening their door and dropping someone twenty meters ahead of them.

“As if that’ll stop me.” Mare muttered. “I’m not going to stop for one person.”

The man looked up.

With glowing blue eyes.

Mad frowned. He had _not_ thought about this. “Dark…”

“Is that you?” Anti finished his thought. “Ta fuck?”

Dark stared at the man, before growling, eyes going black. “ _That’s what they fucking did._ ”

Sharp shadows raced towards the man, when the man raised his arm. A short bolt of electricity shot out, hitting Mare. He jerked, going limp in the seat.

The car swerved, and Mad slammed a hand onto the dashboard, bringing the car back onto the road. “This is quite hard.” He muttered, concentrating. “There’s not enough technology in this old piece of dirt for me to control it perfectly. Interesting, i wonder if electric cars would work-“

“Not now.” Anti hissed, disappearing from his seat. A second later, a man hit the windshield from above with a knife hole in his stomach. Mad just turned on the windshield wipers.

“Classy.” Dark commented, having already diced the man in front of them into several pieces. His eyes had gone back to brown. He had place a hand over Mare’s nose and mouth, moving them back afterwards with a nod.

“You could be a sculptor with your accuracy, Dark.” Mad commented, looking at the sliced man. He had no blood, or any liquid. “Something’s wrong there.”

Suddenly, the pieces of the man glowed one of four colors. The red, green, and yellow pieces all flocked towards the blue piece, connecting and rebuilding the _robot_ back to what it was.

“Had to say something.” Dark muttered, rolling the window down. “Anti! Get back here!”

Moments later, he glitched back into the car, covered in blood with no injuries. “Ye didn’t let me finish up!” He complained.

“We have bigger problems.” Dark murmured, slicing the robot apart again. “Move Mare out of the way so Mad can take the driver’s seat.”

After some shifting, Mad and Mare switch seats, and they raced forward, the robotic man just something in the distance. Anti huffed. “What ta fook was that guy? He look exactly like ya and he didn’t seem to want ta die.”

Dark wrinkled his nose. “When we got here, I had some energy taken away from me. I didn’t think much of it, but it seems like they took it and put it into a robot.”

“Creating Google.” Mad added from the wheel. “I didn’t know they could do that! Aw, that’s actually really cool!”

Anti groaned, just when he thought Mad had gone back to normal. His frustration grew when he saw floating tablet pieces, randomly deconstructing and reconnecting themselves, adding and subtracting things as they went. “Jaysus, Mad, focus on one thing at ah time!”

“I was doing something before Mare so rudely interrupted me by fainting.” Mad grumbled.

“Yer going ta regret everything yer saying when ye finally come back to yer senses.”

“No I won’t.”

Anti snorted slightly. He will. The two always did when they came back.

Their drive was quiet for another ten minutes before Mare jerked in his seat, eyes flying open with a startled gasp. “ _Wha… What the… fuck?”_

Dark wrinkled his nose as the ego unintentionally used his powers, deciding to let it go this time. Besides, he’d rather know what exactly had happened to Mare then to berate him.

Anti, unluckily, said something first. “Dude, ye got knocked out with just one hit, ya priss! I know ya don’ have as much as power as me or Dark, but are ya seriously that weak?” Dark glared at him. That, seriously, was not helping. He shrugged. “What? It’s ta truth.”

Mare shrunk in on himself slightly, more shameful then mad at Anti. That told Dark that Mare was definitely back to normal, irregular Mare would’ve argued and irritated Anti until he left the conversation. “I, I dunno-“

“Your observations on what happened show me just how blind you are.” Mad interrupted coldly, and the smug look Anti had told Dark that he had planned to piss Mad off the entire time. The two were close, just like Anti and he was (sort of… were they close?). “I’m certain that whatever Google did would’ve affected all of us just the same.”

“Care ta enlighten us?” Anti smirked, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat. His knife had gone.

Mad growled slightly, setting his tech parts in the glove compartment and slamming it shut, hands still on the wheel. “While in captivity, I also managed to get a look at some blueprints for a ‘Robotic Guard’. They were going to have it watch us and keep us in check so that they wouldn’t get injured trying to give us food or supplies of any sort.”

“You knew that Google was being built, but didn’t bother to tell me?” Dark sounded calm, but his aura was slowly engulfing the entire car.

“I didn’t know that they were building Google specifically.” Mad answered, seemly unbothered with his aura. “And from what I had gathered -before they blocked me, damnit- the robot wasn’t close to being done. From what I read, that electric bolt? It wasn’t electricity, it’s more of a magnet, designed to pull our energy towards it.  And if our energy isn’t up here-“ he pointed to his head. Then we don’t have control.”

“And since no one else can take over.” Anti finished, connecting the dots. “We jus sorta pass out.”

“Ingenious.” Mad squinted, moving closer to the windshield. “Damnit, I can’t see anything- helicopters could be right above us and I wouldn’t know.”

That’s when Dark smiled, his aura spreading to cover the entire car. “Everyone, grab something.”

Unquestioning, they all grabbed something in the car. Suddenly, the entire car started sinking into the ground. The front and back lights cut off, and the car seemed to be moving, even though Mad wasn’t steering. With a rush of blood to their heads, the shadows receded, and they were on a different road. The car was still moving even, albeit slower.

Anti clicked his tongue, impressed. “You can move an entire car?”

“With some strain, yes.” Dark’s face had paled significantly. “This road is leading towards a motel, the opposite way we were going.”

Mad checked the car. “We were going east, now we’re going southwest. The way we wanted to go in the first place. And, from the sign we just passed- there is a motel coming up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes about Mad and Mare  
> They are not fully formed beliefs! They don’t have enough people with one clear idea to be called fully form.  
> Because of that, they can turn... crazy is the closest word I can think for it. It’s kind of like a switch- if something happens, they can switch from who they have made themselves to be (like Dark and Anti are) to something more like what their belief started out as. They can’t control it though.  
> That’s what Anti and Dark mean when they talk about the two and fully formed stuff.  
> Hope that helps!


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two faced men always have something to hide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made up language up ahead, don‘t try to translate it. It’s only two words anyway.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> None

It was called a motel, but it was more of a family inn. The family that owned the place was nice and big, 2 parents, an uncle, 1 old grandma, and around 8 children all together. The uncle knew English, but he was the only one. The children all watched, partly in fascination, partly in fear.

“ _ Dinviæmo. _ ” They all spoke when the mother walked over, and the youngest ones grabbed her pants, pointing at the four of them. “ _ Das dinviæmos. _ ”

“ _ Ey! Darnęs bava! _ ” The mother said afterwards.

It wasn’t a language they had ever heard of. It must’ve been something unique to this reality. Anti grunted. “Why were tey lookin at us funny?”

The uncle flushed. “Sorry for that.” The uncle on the other hand spoke English almost fluently, and he looked well traveled. “They don’t mean it, I promise.”

“What does  _ Dinviæmo _ mean?” Mare asked, standing in the back with Mad. Dark still didn’t trust the ego in the state he was in. He had a tendency to overuse his powers and boast about his intelligence like this, and neither would be good at the moment. That’s why he told Mare to watch him.

The uncle seemed surprised when Mare pronounced the rough word perfectly. He cleared his throat. “It’s from this old fairy tail. Most translate it to  _ alien _ , but a better translation would be  _ two faced _ . Terribly sorry.” He turned around, snapping slightly at the children, repeating what the mother had said earlier. They all hung their heads.

“It’s quite alright.” Dark chuckled, and it was startling how quickly he could change tones. Dark and intimidating one moment, light and warm the next. “We are a rowdy sight to see.”

The uncle blinked, as if just remembering something. “Yes! Where are your coats and gloves? You’ll get frostbite if you stay outside.”

Dark had an easy answer, though. “We didn’t have time to pack.” He started. “Nathan’s mother fell ill, and we didn’t want him to have to travel so far on such short notice by himself.”

The uncle smiled slightly. “Heh, I remember when I was close enough to my friends to do stuff like that.” He turned towards Mare. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Mare blinked, nodding slowly as the uncle opened the back door to the rooms, finishing out two keys.

They got rooms closest to the biggest heater. Anti doesn’t know how much the others slept, but he only needed a few hours. Dark, on the other hand, slept through the entire night, calm breaths and still blankets was all that came from the other bed.

Anti pinned Dark’s doze on the ‘moving an entire car through shadows’ thing, so he let him sleep in an extra hour after the other two had woken up.

“Two faced.” Mad said while they lounged on a chair by the front door. Anti was happy to see that he was mostly back to normal. Fuckin finally. “Children will never cease to amaze me.”

“Settin your bar really low there.” He murmured. “So they feel somethin’s up, does it matter? Parents don’ listen ta ter kids much.”

Whatever Mad was going to say was drowned out by Dark slouching into the open seat, skin around eyes dark and bagged. Anti whistled. “Damn, I never knew ye needed so much beauty sleep just ta look normal. Ye look like a bear took a shite on ya.”

Dark, like his host use to do, gave him double birds as his reply. Anti almost cackled. 

“Thank you for choosing to stay here.” The uncle was back, smiling as he wiped at tables. “I hope your mother gets better.”

Mare stared blankly ahead until Mad elbowed him. “We all do.” He almost blurted out, forcing a smile on his face. “And while you’re here…  **_Care to give us some coats?_ ** ”

A few minutes later, they were back in their car, in four brand new parkas. They didn’t have to worry about paying for the night either, they swiped an empty credit card and Mad made it look like it was paid. There were pros to having powers.

They were only on the road for a few minutes before Mad gave off an ‘Aha!’ from the front seat.

“Jaysus, you’re loud.” Anti groaned. “And that’s comin from me.”

Mad ignored him, grinning and holding up two weird looking phones to Dark. “I didn’t have much to work with, so they only have basic uses. Good news is, they have no battery, they’re charged by our energy, no one else can use them.” He tossed one to Dark. “Made from half a car radio and an iPad.”

Dark turned it on. The screen was tiny compared to modern phones, but it was still touchscreen. Indeed, there was no battery in the corner, and when he put the phone on the seat, it turned off immediately. Dark would never say he was impressed, but it was an impressive sight. “Emergency use phones?” He asked.

Mad shrugged. “Most likely. Now that I’ve finished the prototypes, I’m more interested in learning more about who exactly created this project we’re apart of. And Google is also an interesting side note.”

The only other thing in this world that can easily knock them out is a side note to Mad. Mare shook his head with a smile as he drove, of course.

“Yer still on about splittin up?” Anti asked, surprised. “I thought that ye would realize how stupid that was when ya got yer common sense back.”

Mare shrugged. “If you wanna cover more ground, you gotta split up to do it.”

Anti groaned, looking at the dark ego next to him. “Comeon Dark, ye know this isn’t gonna end well.”

“This won’t end well!” Mad added from the front. “I’m positive, world ending and all! But you never learn if you don’t try new things!”

Anti ignored him, continuing to look at Dark. He sighed. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Tank you-“

“But-“ Dark’s eyes turned to stare at him in return. “I have something I need to do before we leave, and the fastest and best way to do it would be for us to split up. I need some more information anyway, and Mad is volunteering to get it for us.”

Anti grabbed his head in frustration. “Why á̵͈̺̙̫̓͂͌̈̏̅̕m̸̡̢̿͐́̋̋̐̌̚ I ta only one thinkin safely here?”

“Never thought I’d hear that.” Mare grinned, unconcerned of his glitched tone. “We really are in a different reality!”

You know what, fuck it all. He was about to find the vortex on his own.

Dark held out his hand to stop him. “You’ll enjoy this.” He said lowly, before speaking to Mad. “Once you have my information, call immediately.”

“Okay.” Mad shrugged. “What do you want to learn so bad?”

“The same as you.” Dark’s eyes glittered. “I need the names and addresses of the group of people who took us from our reality, and the people who authorized it.” He turned to look at Anti, cracking his neck. “I’m in the mood for blood.”

  
  
  


The more Mare thought about it, the more he was happy with his choice.

Sure, Anti and Dark were the powerhouses. They were the strength and agility and everything physical about the team. They could teleport (or travel via shadows) over long distances and could kill someone without looking. They were the definition of a powerhouse.

That’s why him being there wasn’t good.

He couldn’t teleport or quickly travel, he could incapacitate -and kill if he tries hard enough- people, but he was weak compared to them. No, he wasn’t a physical ego. He and Mad were mental. They were manipulative egos.

That’s why it would be best if they let the other two do the killing, and get to the vortex their own way, despite Anti’s complaints (of course it’s a bad idea but it’s better then what they have-).

They drove for hours, until they reached the Russian border, which was almost an entire country farther then it was in their reality. Dark transported them to the other side, and when they reached the next city, Anti took the wheel (bad idea waiting to happen) and they were gone.

“Well.” Mad looked up, scanning every bright light and digital billboard that covered every square inch of space down the road. Mare didn’t know much geography, but he doesn’t recognize this city at all. One unique to this reality? “Having any second thoughts?”

Mare shook his head. “Not yet.” He eyed the crowded streets and paths- people bunched up in coats, huddled together as they walked in the afternoon icy air. “So, what’s the plan?”

Mad blinked. “What plan?”

Mare stared at him. A second passed. Another. “ _ You don’t have a plan?! _ ”

Mad winced, wiping fresh blood from his ears. “I have many plans!” He hissed back at him. “But I’ve trashed them all! Give me a few minutes, plan #32 is my final draft.”

Mare was going to punch the ego. He was going to do it.  _ This was his best friend?! _ He grabbed Mad’s wrist, leading him away from the blinding lights. “While you’re thinking up plan 382-“

“Plan 32-“

“Why don’t we get somewhere that’s  _ not  _ super crowded so that when Google and the rest of them finally get here they can find us easier.”

Mad let him lead them blindly away. “I’ve already had that planned out. I’m onto the ‘ _ how to sneak into vortex’ _ part! Come’on Mare, you’re 13 stages behind.”

Mare stopped, turning back. “I, am going to, punch you. Square in the face. If I put enough power into it, I can break your jaw. Then finally, you can shut up.”

Mad just laughed, stuffing his hands into his pockets and taking a turn, walking through an alleyway. “You would never hurt this handsome face.”

Mare took some strides to catch up to him, frustration slipping off of him easily. “Sure, pretty boy.”

It took fifteen alleyways, and three different mugging attempts before they reached a quieter part of the city. In the grey light they could see that they’ve entered the poor part of the city. Even with that, children still ran around, chasing kids or throwing old newspapers to dogs. They laughed while older siblings watched and did homework. Some elderly were outside too, even with the cold all of them must’ve felt.

They don’t have money for heaters that worked 24-7. Mare realized. It’s just as cold inside as it is out.

They didn’t get as many looks as they expected. Any of the looks were ones of sympathy, as if they were the ones poor and they themselves weren’t. Mare didn’t understand until he realized that almost each person who passed by awkwardly close was trying to steal something from their empty pockets.

He was worried about the phone for a moment when Mad held it up to show that he still had it.

The poor residential part of the city was surprisingly small, and they got through it in only a few hours. By nightfall, they had reached the outskirts of towns, an area littered with factories and broken down houses.

Mad paused, grabbing Mare’s arm to stop him from moving further. After a moment, he smiled.

“What?” Mare asked, not in the mood after walking (and getting repeatedly mugged) for hours on end. He’s never used his powers so much in his entire life. Just the same words ‘you will not rob us, turn around and leave-‘ over and over again-

Mad said nothing, just pointing up. Mare looked up, relieved and fearful of the helicopter that appeared in the sky.

As it landed, the doors opened, and Google jumped out again, stoned face with glowing blue eyes. “Do not resist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing really to say. Hope you enjoyed, big stuff coming.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a breather- teleporting is hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun times of egos overusing their powers and dealing with it. 
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Major Characters- Anti swears, ya’ll know that  
> Minor Characters- Stuff is stolen. dunno if that’s warning noteable but oh well.

“If we don’t know where we’re goin until we get Mad’s call.” Anti started. “Then why are we still driving?”

Dark had switched places with the glitchy ego, taking the wheel a few hours after they had left the others. Sighing lightly, he said, “I’m tired of wearing these horrendous outfits.”

The parkas hid them slightly, but the plain white tank top and blue pants wasn’t Dark’s thing. The others were luckier- there outfits weren’t completely horrid.

Like Anti’s, his shirt was a mess, covered in blood, but he had zipped up his own parka and it went well with his red pants and the black boots he managed to nick. Not his style, but not atrocious either.

Anti blinked, before looking at him unbelievably. “We’re… going shoppin? Seriously?” He paused. “Ya know we jus left both our credit card and con man back der, right?”

“I thought you would enjoy stealing from people’s houses.” Dark said calmly. “Or just killing and looting bodies- whichever you prefer. I just need a wardrobe change.”

It was slight for a moment. “Never knew ya were such a drama queen.”

**_I am not!_ **

_You so are._ Mark’s soul laughed, which legitimately sounded like a fairy. _You get it from me._ He added proudly.

**_That’s not a trait I’m happy to have._ **

_Hey!_

He smiled slightly, glancing at Anti from the corner of his eye. His body had started glitching, a sign that he was either nervous or excited. Definitely excited. “Be careful about it though.” Dark warned. “We want to keep them off our trail as long as possible.”

“We should ditch tis car then.” Anti suggested, watching as they entered a town. “They could be trackin it.”

“If they are, then it’s highly probable that they’ve found Mad and Mare already.” Dark said, not solemnly, as if it was a sad thing. He sounded like he was just stating facts.

It was quiet for a moment.

“Let’s definitely ditch ta car.”

They ditched said car in an actual ditch at town line, teleporting away from it instead of leaving like normal.

Dark let Anti have his fun, and the glitch came back with a maniacal grin and more than just money from a wallet. Dark raised an eyebrow. “Did you… break into a house that someone else was currently in?”

He grinned. “Best of both worlds.”

It was enough money for him to buy a grey suit and for Anti to get a black long sleeved shirt and black jeans as well. Afterwards, they went back to the house of Anti’s victim to use their shower (well, der not gonna use it anymore, are tey?) and take some of their food to go.

Needless to say, after the new clothes and warm shower, Dark felt like he could destroy the entire town. He even shaved.

_Uhh, let’s not have those thoughts…_ Mark’s soul shivered, but it didn’t seem directed at him. Dark ignored it in favor of assuring his host.

**_I’m not planning on causing any bodily harm to anyone today._ ** He wanted Mark to continue to trust him, so when they’re back in his actual body and Dark doesn’t have full control, he can still take over from time to time without any objections. Mark only lets it happen for his videos, and that’s far and few between.

And then there are times when Chica’s being adorable and Dark really wants to pet her but that’s another story all together-

“There’s another town 30 miles from here.” Dark said while looking at a wall map. “It’s bigger than this town, closer to a city then a town.”

Anti didn’t really see why he needed to know this. “Okay, so? We need a car ta get there.”

“Not necessarily.” Dark rumbled, checking the wall map and pointing in a certain direction. “If you can teleport us 15-20 miles there, then I can get us the rest of the way, and then to a hotel afterwards.”

He didn’t hear him right. No way. “Ya… ya want meh to teleport ya _twenty miles_ away?! Dark, I’ve never gone farther tan five hundred feet!”

“And I’ve never transported a car though shadows before either.” Dark said calmly, as if placating him. “The first time, when I changed roads, I went half a mile. The second, across the border, an entire mile.”

That’s why he practically passed out afterwards. Still, he woke up quite quickly. Anti still wasn’t sure. “Dark... neither of us have tested this before-“

“I wouldn’t of suggested it if I didn’t think we could do it.” Dark said, gently this time, turning to look him straight in the eyes with a hand on his shoulder. “The fact is… the government getting Mad and Mare back will slow them down, but only temporary. A day at most. We need to be as far away from there as fast as possible, with no connection whatsoever as to where we went. The fact is, when they get here and see that car, there needs to be nothing whatsoever that can lead them to us. We changed clothes, we fixed our hair, this is our best chance to get away. I’m willing to lose a day to sleep if it means we’ll be where they don’t expect us to be.”

The town he was looking at was directly south of them. They’re (Google) expecting them to go straight west.

Anti closed his eyes, concentrating for a moment, before opening them. One had turned bright green, the other solid black. Usually, they just both turned black- Anti was using a lot more power than usual.

He grabbed the wrist of the hand on his shoulder, Dark felt lightheaded, and they were gone.

When Dark could see straight again, they were in some forest. That was a lucky spot to land, since there was only a thin strip of woods around 25 miles out from the town they were in, so Dark knew exactly how far he had to go.

25 miles…

Dark groaned as Mark’s soul mumbled, _Mr Dark, I don’t feel so good…_

“That made ya sick?” He could hear Anti. “Ha, ya pussy. Can’t handle it?”

Dark wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t think to secure my host’s soul down or anything… ugh.” He shook his head, clearing the last few drops of nausea he felt. “You just traveled 25 miles in one second.”

He looked surprised, before hiding it with a laugh. “Shower me wit yer praises. I know I’m great.”

Dark didn’t bring up how Anti felt just a few moments before, and he could tell Anti was happy with that. Instead, he gave a quick warning, before grabbing the ego’s shoulder again and guiding them through the shadows.

He wasn’t surprised when Anti stumbled as they landed, exhaustion catching up to him. Dark grabbed his arm to balance him, looking around for a large hotel. He could see one a few blocks away, at least 12 stories high, and good quality as well.

Going through the shadows again, he found a vacant two bed room. This time, he stumbled as he walked out. It was honestly harder getting through thick walls then moving a car through shadows, who knew?

He didn’t want to do that again, unless necessary.

He doesn’t even remember hitting the bed.

  


He woke up to a phone call the next morning. Anti groaned at the sound next to him on the other bed.

“Hello?” He spoke blearily.

“Hello hello hello…” Mad said, laughing slightly like it was a joke. It stopped almost instantly when he registered Dark’s voice. “Hey, are you doing okay?”

“Yes.” Dark put more base into his voice to hide the weariness. He still needed more sleep. “Do you have something important to say?”

That got him back on track. “Yes. I’ve checked most of the on hand computers they have with us right now, and I’ve found the head of this operation. He’s the guy who found out about us in the first place, and came up with the idea of studying us up close. Code name is, ironically, Sneeplestein.”

Dark blinked. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, but I am. Says here he changed it around a week after he started studying the vortex. His code name before was ‘The Witness’. His first name’s Theo, but I don’t have a last name. It says he works in the Kernh (it’s this unique alternate reality country) branch of the government. That’s all I have right now, the rest of his stuff is coded and Google prodded me when I took to long.”

“Google’s with you?” Dark asked.

“Yep.” Mad seemed a little to calm for his situation, but he was a weird one in general. “His primary goal was to bring me back so that I didn’t spill any government secrets. I think they’re going to try to erase my mind or something, so I’m not a threat anymore.”

So Mad was right. They would target him. They cared more about their reputation then their citizens. They’ve taken their best player off the field, and left two deadly beings to do what they want, with only normal men going after them. Dark chuckled, which turned into a yawn. “Watch yourself around that robot. He has some of my energy.”

“Oh, I know.” He could picture Mad waving his concerns away. “The thing is, he’s basically a walking talking phone. I've already tested this out, and my hypothesis is true- I can control Google with my powers. They prodded me before I could really try, and he can fight back, but I can control him.”

Mad really doesn’t care about his own personal safety. Dark sighed, if one of Mark’s friends died and Dark could’ve helped stop it, he would never hear the end of it. So instead of bringing up his own safety, he said. “How’s your host’s soul? None of this is hurting him, right?”

Immediately, Mad got quiet, his voice lost it’s goofy tone. “He’s fine, hasn’t gotten a scratch on him.” Mad said softly. Dark frowned, why did Mad sound a little… scared? He went to answer, but Mad cut him off. “My time’s up, he’s coming back. I’ll call when I have more information.”

Dark could tell he was trying to sidestep the conversation, but he couldn’t do anything as Mad hung up.

Dark put the phone down. He wanted to think more about the call, but he was still exhausted. He leaned back to relax, and almost immediately fell back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dark secretly loves playing with Chica. No one can tell me differently. Dark loves the pupper.
> 
> And don’t mind the infinity war reference


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be careful of all. Even of yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good chapter, I likey.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Minor Characters- None?  
> Major Characters- Mental problems

It felt even worse then what Mad thought it would feel like.

They had been restrained, as if that would really work, before they were hauled up onto the military grade chopper. The men driving and in the chopper said nothing, and Mad took an open seat, concealing his grin.

 _Why are you so excited?_ He could hear Mat ask curiously.

 **_We were captured!_ ** Mad answered back happily. He could’ve swore he heard Mat cuss.

_And how is that a good thi-_

And then, suddenly, he was gone. He felt the body he was in fall, but there was a tug in his gut, a rush of blood, and then Mat was gone.

 **_Matthew?_ ** He called out. When the soul didn’t answer, he became fearful. **_Matthew!_ **

It took a moment for him to calm down enough to realize that he wasn’t in his head anymore, but somewhere closer to the stomach. The thought calmed him slightly, and so he made his way back up towards him.

He couldn’t make it.

Once he made even a little bit of process, his stomach seemed to drop, and he was pulled back down. He doesn’t know how, but he couldn’t return to his head... or to his soul.

His mind went on a rampage. _What if they know? What if they know about his soul and they’re keeping me down here so that they can take it without us fighting back? What if he’s already gone? How much longer do I have left? How long have I been down here I can’t tell…_

He doesn’t know how long the thoughts went on or how long he tried to pull himself back up towards the mind. It could of been minutes, hours, weeks, or years. He really didn’t know. He was panicking more than he ever had before and for the first time his mind worked against him and not with him. All he knows is that when he could finally make it back up to his head, he hurt several of counterpart Matthew’s organs on the way.

 _Mad!_ He’s never been so happy to hear Mat. _Where did you go?_

 **_Down to our stomach._ ** He said, changing subjects to avoid the question. He truely didn’t know if he could talk about it. **_Are you okay?_ **

_I’m fine._ The soul replied, giving itself a little shake. _But I felt it, why were you scared?_

His soul has been next to Mad’s energy ever since Mad first formed, he should’ve known that there would be side effects because of that. **_Well Matthew, I’ve never seen a stomach_ ** **_without_ ** **_cutting someone open before- and the pancreas was a strange sight._ **

His soul shivered, _I hope you’re joking about the ‘cutting someone open’ part._

 **_When would I have time to do that?_ ** Mad said, **_You’ve been here the entire time._ **

_I can’t see anything going on._

Mad, finally having control again, opened his eyes. **_You wouldn’t want to see either way._ **

Mad had been moved onto a gurney, ankles, wrists, and neck strapped down with leather. He didn’t try to get out. Instead, he looked at the ceiling and said, “Why am I restrained? I came willingly.”

Google was maneuvering said gurney through endless hallways. Since it was a robot, as well as being Google, he jerked and spazzed as well as just moving slowly in general. Mad remembers when he was first getting his mind together, around a year after the idea of MadPat came to be. When Mat was sleeping, he took control, and curious, he looked up the egos of other people his host knew.

He never thought the knowledge would be more than just interesting. Now it was just plain helpful.

The few videos of Google Didn’t give people to much to go on- he was a killer robot, Mark loved having killer egos- so he’s almost completely based off the fandom. Pre red, green, and yellow Google, original Google was known as glitchy and prone to malfunction. If this Google did have some of Dark’s energy, then he’d be prone to act like the fan’s manifestation of original Google.

“Based on data gathered, restraining you was the best option to keep critical information out of your reach.” Google said in monotone.

Mad shrugged, he had to show that he was willing to go along with everything. “If you were going to do this anyway, then why did you knock me out?”

“Neutralization was a necessity.” Google replied, and it confirmed what Mad already knew. Google had done the same thing to Mad that he had to Mare. Was this how Mare felt afterwards..? “Until we know if your intentions are as true as you say.”

Mad stopped trying to strain his head. He could feel all the technology around them, buzzing. This time, he outwardly smiled- he didn’t need to be in contact with it to use it. Stretching his aura out to the largest source of electricity he could sense, he latched on, drinking up as much as he could without actually reading any of it. He could decode it all later. “How long did you have me ‘neutralized’?”

“Approximately 5 hours, 32 minutes, and 4 seconds.” Google responded, before stopping, raising his hand to have it point at him. “Keep your energy contained in your body, number 13.1.”

Mad hid his surprise. Google could sense his aura? His aura wasn’t as strong as Dark’s or as loud as Anti’s, it could easily slip past regulars. It slipped past the other egos 90% of the time!

Google was quickly climbing up his list of people to worry about, which was a short list already. Just the fact that the robot could ‘neutralize him’ and take him away from his host’s soul was scary. Mad almost couldn’t believe it- he was afraid, even if only a little bit- of Google.

He forced his face into a confused state, sneaking his aura back to him. “What do you mean? My energy’s snug and happy where it is.”

Not a complete lie. An aura and their energy aren’t the same thing, and he was quite snug where he was. Happy? No.

The walking lie detector frowned slightly, before continuing forward. Mad stayed quiet, instead starting to decode what he had just learned. He had been out for 5 and a half hours. Dark would be expecting something soon.

Mad was worried about his makeshift phone for a moment, but he could still feel it, in the farthest down pocket of the cargo pants he had, right by his ankle. It was small, and since it didn’t have a signal of it’s own, it went by unnoticed. Score for Mad.

He was dropped off in a nice but dank cell. Google unwrapped the straps, and he jumped up, stretching as if he was at home. “Wait.”

Google had just left the cell, and he was about to lock it. “Yeeess?”

Mad laughed slightly at that specific glitch. “Where’s Mare?”

“Subject 14.1 is being tested.” Google replied blandly. “Do not try to leave before the memory wipe- I will be back in 3 hours.”

Mad squinted, memory wipe? He wanted to laugh- like that would work. His memories were mostly Mat’s memories, and he had backed up his own memories onto his soul as well. He waited till the robot left before snorting. “Good luck with that.”

He went on decoding the rest of what he learned, not wanting to make Dark wait to long. Google was indeed… something to be wary about, but Dark still held the spot of most dangerous. No matter how nonchalant Mad acted, he still knew, Dark would get rid of all of them if it saved Mark’s soul.

And it wasn’t just because of his own survival.

 

Anti glitched back into existence with a plate of pancakes. “Gotta give it ta em. Human food is delicious.”

Dark secretly frowned at how fast the ego bounced back from his teleporting trip, how it didn’t effect him as much as it did Dark. Instead of showing his frustrations, he let the ego eat while he pulled up the map on the small phone Mad made (of course he added a map it’s _Mad-_ ) and strained his eyes while he looked over it.

After deciding to invest in an actual map later, he worked his way through the entire thing, finding the town they were in. After a moment, he huffed in surprise. “We crossed into another country.” He murmured aloud. “We’re not to far from Kernh, now.”

“Kernh?” Anti asked between bites. “Ta fook is that?”

“Where Sneeplestein is.”

Anti blinked. “...Wat?”

“Mad called.” Dark explained. “He had information about the whereabouts of the original planner of our project.” He gave Anti a sly smile. “He was a fan, apparently.”

“But of Sneeplestein?” Anti seemed more upset by that then anything else. “Out of everyone, he likes ‘ze very gud doctar?’” His accent was on point to a t, but he didn’t seem to notice, instead crossing his arms with a pout, stuffing the last pancake into his mouth sullenly.

“His name is the least of our worries.” Dark said. “He works in Kernh, which is a two hour drive by car from here. His original code name is ‘The Witness’, and his actual name is Theo.”

Anti squished his nose. “Ta Witness? So he’s not an agent.”

“More of a Scientist, I believe.” Dark murmured. “It doesn’t matter. He created our project. He started this.”

 

There was blood all over him, covering his hands and face and clothes. He was enjoying this, he was enjoying testing his subject- he loved the muffled screams and _pleads_.

His soul was scared, scared of _him._ He didn’t want that- but alas, this was to important, this was who he was, this was his _belief-_

_Simulation complete. Data archived. System shutting down._

Mare opened his eyes with a gasp, blinking blearily as something was removed from his face. Nate’s soul was terrified, and in Mare’s fuzzy mind, he couldn’t tell why. **_What’s wrong?_ **

The soul didn’t answer, moving as far away from him as possible. Mare groaned, rubbing at his head. As his head cleared, he realized why his host’s soul was scared. **_Nate, why are you scared of me?_ **

Still no answer.

And then he remembered what had just happened. His eyes widened as he curled into himself, hands gripping his hair. The simulation… he was pushed back into…

Men grabbed him, pulling back his arms to restrain him and pushing him out of the room and into hallways but he wasn’t paying attention because how did they do that it shouldn’t be possible-

Google had him now, holding the back of his collar and pushing him forward. He went willingly, after what he did he had to go willingly he was a terrible person-

“It’s been 3 hours already?”

Mare’s head jerked up, and his surprise must’ve been clear, since Mad raised an eyebrow in question. But how was Mad here, hadn’t Mare..?

_It was a simulation…_

Mare jolted as Nate finally spoke, softly and wary, still as far from Mare as he could be.

Mare exhaled in relief. **_So I didn’t-_ **

_You would._ Nate hissed. _If you were put there, in that situation, you wouldn’t even think about it, would you? You’d do it in a heartbeat._

**_No-_ **

_Don’t ~~lie~~ to yourself. _ Mare wasn’t sure if this was even Nate anymore, or just his own self conscious. _You’re a ~~demon~~ , a _ ~~_nightmare_~~ _. You hurt those who are closest to you._

Mare was placed in the same cell as Mad, the door closed and locked behind him. He didn’t move when Google walked away, though. He just stared at the opposite wall, dull eyed.

Mad moved forward. “Hey, Mare?” He waved a hand in front of his face, getting no response. He sighed. “What did they do to you?”

He only got a blink in reply.

Because Mare didn’t deserve to answer him, didn’t deserve to be in his presence, didn’t deserve to be his friend. Not when something so little could send him back to his beginnings.

Because, unlike Dark and Anti, he wasn’t too dangerous to his host. Unlike Mad, he had someone he was dangerous to particularly.

And now he knew. If he was ever pulled back to that place with Mad around, he might lose control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t mind me....  
> I just like ma angst


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lying only works for so long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun times ahead
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Minor Characters- Death  
> Major Characters- ?

Dark entered the government building with a hat on and thick rimmed glasses to not be discovered.

Anti did no such thing.

“Good afternoon sir, how may I-“ the lady at the desk looked up eyes bulging at the site. “A-agent? Agent Septic- you’re alive?” She squinted at Dark. “Agent Warf?”

Dark wrinkled his nose, these names were horrid. Anti just smirked, tilting an imaginary hat. “M’Lady.”

Dark groaned. “Sorry about him- he’s an idiot-“

“Oi!”

“-I was hopeing to talk with the leader of this establishment.” Dark ignored the glitch. “We need transportation home.”

The woman put numbers onto her phone without breaking eye contact with Anti, murmuring into the phone almost unintelligibly. “Floor 13.” She said after.

They waltzed through, getting gawks from all around as they made it to the elevator. Anti cackled. “Never knew we were so well known in this dimension.”

“We’re always well known in our job. If most youtubers knew of us when we were youtubers, then why wouldn’t most government agents know of us when we were agents as well.”

“Popular no matter what dimension.” Anti grinned.

That grin faded when the door opened to reveal several people with guns pointed right at them.

“Well.” Dark cracked his neck. “Is this how you greet captured agents finally returning home?”

“Cut the bull.” One man snarled. “We know who you really are.”

“Do ya now?” Anti glitched in his spot, excitement radiating off him. The men all took a step back as he glitched, fear changing their postures.

“We’re looking for a man named Theo.” Dark explained calmly. “He used to be called The Witness, now Sneeplestein. If you could bring him out to talk with us, then we can leave without any bloodshed.”

Anti almost bounced with joy in the lie he heard in Dark’s voice. He forced himself to calm down and stop glitching, to lull the men into a false sense of security.

“He warned us about you.” One man said. “Said not to trust a word out of your mouths.”

Dark sighed. Plan B it is.

“Anti.”

The glitched did a high pitch cackle. Computers closest to him glitched slightly as his delight peaked.

Then, he was gone.

The man all gawked as Dark looked back at them. He cracked his neck again, causing his image to get blurry and blue and red lines to appear. “We could’ve done this the easy way.”

Shadows erupted from the ground, skewering the ten people closest to Dark. The bodies hung off the shadows until Dark dissolved them, leaving the bodies to fall on the ground.

It was then that Anti appeared again, holding a man over his shoulder. “Found ‘em.”

Dark smirked, pressing the top floor button on the elevator. “We did warn you.”

The agents left alive were placed in a mental ward afterwards, from the trauma and delusions they thought they saw. Because men can’t teleport or use shadows. Men’s eyes don’t turn black.

And certainly, if a man could control shadows, they  _ wouldn’t tip their baseball cap at them afterwards. _

No, these agents were mentally insane. No doubt about it.

The elevator ringed to show that they stopped. The doors opened to reveal that they were not, in fact, on the top floor, but in between floors.

Anti squinted. “Why did we stop?”

An alarm blared from above. “That’s why.” Dark answered in a monotone voice. “Come on, to the top of the elevator.”

Dark melted into the shadows, reappearing on the top of the elevator box. Anti snowed up not a moment afterwards, readjusting the (sobbing) man on his shoulder.

Anti slapped him. “Quit it, tis is a new outfit!”

Dark didn’t bother with either of them, instead moving over to grab Anti’s free shoulder, and traveling through the shadows. He stopped on the rooftop, something surprisingly empty of everything. He expected at least more than one easily breakable camera watching this place.

Oh well, take the easy stuff when you can.

Anti dropped the man, supposedly Theo, on the ground. He man was reaching thirties, with a full head of brown hair and dark blue eyes, cleanly shaven. He had curled up into a ball as if to protect himself.

Anti kicked him. “Hey, stop whining!”

As if finally registering his voice, Theo’s head popped up in surprise. Any fear he had just vanished, as if it was never there. “Wait, you’re…” He turned towards Dark, “and you’re…” He did a childish jump, clasping his hands together. “Oh, this is fantastic! It worked! I wasn’t sure it would but my hypothesis worked!”

Anti glances at Dark. “It’s like Mad never left.”

Dark sighed, before shooting out a thin shadow, stopping it an inch from the man’s eyes. He squeaked, curling up into a ball again. “Are you who they call Sneeplestein?”

The man must’ve had short term memory, or something, because at the sound of his name, he was immediately back up and gushing to Anti. “Oh, I will say I am a big fan of this body’s counterpart. You are Anti, correct? Jacksepticeye is still in the other dimension, oh I wanted to meet him. But you!” His sadness turned into excitement in a second. “You are what science needs. Both of you! You show that belief can make something out of pure thought alone. Incredible!”

“Yer annoying. Shut up already.”

Theo stopped. “What?”

Anti had officially lost all patience. He had summoned his knife, and was creeping towards the weird man. “We didn’t come here ta chat!”

“Stop.” Anti looked up from his soon to be victim, to see Dark. The ego hadn’t been engaged with the conversation because he was injuring men who were climbing the stairs or using the elevator shaft. “We need to know who else was involved with this project.”

“Why?” Theo pipped. “None of them are as big of fans as I am. I even tried injecting some of your energy into me!”

He had said that to Anti, like he was a son trying to please his father. Anti, on the other hand, didn’t know what he was feeling. “You, did,  **_what?_ ** ”

It was then that Theo realized that he might’ve done something wrong. “I couldn’t handle it, it messed up my brain some, but I’m fine, even though I’m forgetful. I don’t even remember how we got up here, but you’re on our side, and you both are very powerful, so I’m safe…” Theo trailed off, as if he just realized what had happened. 

“News flash.” Anti grabbed the man by his neck, pulling him up into the air. “We’re not on the same side.”

“B-But, the mind chips.” Theo coughed. “They didn’t work?”

“What mind chips?” Dark asked, interested. “There aren’t any mind chips.”

“They never installed them?” Theo looked surprised, even though his face was turning blue. Anti releases his hold slightly. 

“What are they?” Now Dark was losing patience.

Theo squeaked, as if trying to curl up in a ball again. “It’s these chips you install into someone’s minds. They see a completely different world then we do. It’s how the government controls criminals. If we wanted someone to drink a bottle marked poison, it would look like a glass of wine to them.”

“...the fuck?” Anti murmured. “Tat makes no sense.”

“It does, slightly.” Dark conceded. “If you saw Google, you would attack him, right? If you had that mind chip, then whoever controls it could make it look like I was Google. You would fight me, thinking that you’re fighting Google instead.”

Anti wrinkled his nose at the thought, turning back to the man. “Can they be installed at any time?”

Theo nodded weakly.

“Shit!” Dark grunted, pulling out his makeshift phone and dialing a number.

“What’s wrong?” Anti asked.

“Just because they haven’t tried to chip us yet doesn’t mean they won’t in the future.” Dark murmured. “Mad and Mare don’t know anything about this.” Dark growled. “He’s not picking up, shit.”

The door to the roof start to pound. Dark twitched in annoyance, before sending a shadow straight through Theo’s back, emerging through his heart. “Let’s go.”

Anti pouted, letting go of the dying man. “Aw, I wanted to do it!”

“Cry later.” Dark moved over to grab him again, and Anti let him, because he didn’t know where Dark wanted to go.

He left his own mark though, as well.

When they finally opened the door, the shadow holding the man was still there, and Theo’s decapitated head sat in front of it.

  
  
  


Mad didn’t know what was wrong.

Mare wouldn’t speak more than necessary to him, wouldn’t tell him what happened or what was wrong. It was the first time he’s ever seen genuine fear on the ego’s face. Mare wasn’t the most confident person, he was shy and introverted when he had his head, crazy and sadistic when he didn’t, but Mad was the same in that way.

But Mare always talked to him. Confided in him when need be. They understood each other better then Anti or Dark ever could.

So what was wrong?

He didn’t get to ask, since only a few minutes after, some more men marched in, grabbing him and pushing him out the door.

He had expected lack of trust in him in the beginning, so this meant nothing to him. But ever since Mare said he was coming, Mad added him into his plans. Without Mare talking, it would be a lot harder to manipulate whoever was in charge to take them to the vortex. They were lucky that the aircraft thing they were in now wasn’t taking them back to Russia to begin with.

“When will you guys realize I came here on my own?” Mad faked a pout as he came face to face with Google. “You wouldn’t of caught us if we didn’t want to be here.”

“If you told us where the other two experiments were, we’d be more inclined to believe you.” Some older man in a white lab coat stood next to Google, arms held behind him. He wore thick old glasses that made his eyes look like globes. He was affectionately named Eye Guy in Mad’s messed up head.

_ That’s the best you can come up with? _ He could hear Mat ask, and he wanted to scoff. The soul couldn’t even see the man, and he wanted to interject?

Mad shrugged, giving an innocent grin. “They didn’t think it best for them to come back. Kicked us out for our choice.”

“I would have thought that the months you spent together would’ve formed some type of bond between you all.” Eye Guy said, somewhat disappointed.

Mad laughed. “Then you didn’t do enough research on our beginnings. We’ve only ever cared about ourselves.” Little white lies pass lie detectors all the time.

“If your kind only cares for themselves, then why did specimen 14.1 react the way he did to our experiments?” Eye Guy smirked, as if he had caught him.

Mad struggled with his curiosity. He wanted to know, but any slip up could cause grave consequences. Instead, he kept his uncaring mask firm on his face and tilted his head slightly. “I don’t know what experiment you’ve done, so I don’t have an answer for you.”

Eye Guy smirked, as if he was about to boast. Mad hid a victorious smirk- this is what he wanted, information given to him on a platter. It was much easier hearing it from someone then decoding it from computers.

Google, unfortunately, cut him off. “It is in our best interests to not give number 12.1 any more information than what he already has. Now, connect him to the machine.”

Mad sat down in the torturous looking seat without a complaint. “I prefer The Scientist, better.” His eyes widened comically. “Can that be my code name? It fits me very well, don’t you think?”

“Preference recorded.” Google said, and the chair he was in came to life, needle sharp screws dug into the sides of his head, just above his ears.

“Ow.” He responded dully, just to show that it didn’t actually hurt. Eye Guy looked slightly revolted, which was enough for him.

The screws dug deeper, and Mad curled his energy around the soul in his head. The screws, however, stopped once they pierced his own energy. He gave a little grunt to that.

Eye Guy’s eyes seemed to sparkle at the fact that he, in fact, did feel some type of pain. “I suggest you do not struggle.” He said smugly. “Mind erasing can be painful, but you won’t remember it afterwards anyway.”

Oh.

Mad held back a laugh. So they  _ were  _ trying to make him forget all of his precious information. Sadly, that would never work.

Because Mad doesn’t have a personal mind, a brain or any sort of memory tank. His core memories are from belief, which in itself is impossible to get rid of. All of his memories of before his first capture is stored with his host. And since his host’s soul is basically a SD card, those were fine to. The only thing that can make the soul forget is reincarnation, and still the soul doesn’t forget, it just buries it. Mad had a fun time looking into Mat’s past lives whenever he became bored.

_ Wait, you  _ **_what?!?_ **

He laughed a little on the outside.

The only memories that left were the ones he made while in control. Those, again, weren’t stored in this counterpart’s mind. He stored them in his own energy. He wasn’t human, he didn’t need a brain to function. Or a heart.

All he needed was a soul.

And that’s why currently every single sliver of his energy was wrapped around the delicate thing, an impenetrable iron wall. It was one of the rare times that he had a warning, a heads up. He had time to protect his soul completely, and not just a flimsy makeshift barrier.

Mat didn’t even know what was happening.  _ Why am I being suffocated? _ He could almost see the soul smile.  _ Does Mad want a hug? _

**_At the moment, no._ ** Mad let a smile tilt his lips, and his silence was no doubt disturbing Eye Guy. He had a way of creeping people out.

He shrugged to himself, uncaring of the deeper holes he made the screws cause. Maybe his origin was the FNAF musical. Millions of people had watched the extended version, so he wouldn’t be surprised. It would also explain how ‘creepy’ was a second nature to him- he was unhinged in that.

But he had already been partially created before that. Why was his own beginnings so complicated to him-

A small electric shock made him involuntarily flinch. He growled slightly. Stupid, useless brain, it still had some basic control over the body. He would get rid of it all together, but Mat used it to communicate with him and he knew his soul would be pissed if Mad got rid of his only way to speak. Instead, he wrapped a thin layer of energy around the useless tissue to shield it. Couldn’t have it showing off a weakness, could he?

He hated weakness.

He only had a moment to kick himself for his hypocrisy (friends were a weakness and look at him-) before a harsher shock coursed through his body. His stolen brain didn’t spaz like before, but he still had to grit his teeth.

The face Eye Guy was making made Mad want to kill him. It was making him (joke intended)  _ mad. _

Instead, he made himself look docile, glazing over his eyes and looking down blankly at the floor. If losing his memories made them more likely to trust him, them what was he to deny them?

_ What’s going on? _ He could hear Mat’s curiosity.  _ This mind feels charred. _

It sounded charred as well- Mat’s voice came out more like his counterpart’s, deeper and less joyful.

**_I’m currently being electrocuted._ ** Mad never really found a reason not to tell his host most of the things happening to him. The only things he ever hid was the… more gruesome things.  **_Don’t worry, I have you guarded. You won’t feel a thing._ **

_ What about you? _ The question almost startled him. He barely felt the next shock.  _ Are you okay? _

It took him a moment to answer.  **_I don’t feel regular pain, Matthew. I’m fine, don’t worry about me._ **

He could feel the soul frown. If souls could frown, at least. More like, his soul dimmed.  _ I know you don’t feel regular pain, Mad- but I’m still allowed to worry. Why are you letting someone do this? _

**_Why else?_ ** Mad laughed inwardly. Mat knew the answer. Information, always information. It’s what Mad loved more than anything. He’d jump off a cliff if it meant he’d learn something interesting.

_ And this is why I worry about you. _ Mat sighed.

There was another larger shock, and Mad could tell that it would break through the flimsy shield he put on the mind, hitting Mat’s connected soul in the process. Quickly, He removed his weak shield from his stolen brain, using the extra energy to rip Mat’s connection from the mind and protecting him completely.

Without his permission, Mad’s body threw his head back and  _ screamed. _

Mad wasn’t hurt anymore then he had been last time, but this time, his stolen brain had gotten hit full force, and Mat’s counterpart felt every single moment of pain that shock had given him.

Google could tell the difference as well. Mad’s scream didn’t sound like the ego, but more like the Theorist. He could easily compare the two, since he had a voice recording of what the man use to sound like. “It seems like The Theorist is still living inside of the Scientist.”

Mad’s body was huffing, much to his annoyance. Still, he was pleased to hear his suggestion, instead of a number.

Eye Guy’s eyes became otherworldly in size at that. “You believe so?” He waited for Google’s affirmation. “Then that means that the old agents in the other experiments might be alive as well. Number 13.1, tell me, is the Theorist still alive within you?”

Mad wanted to laugh in joy. Instead, he kept a blank look, looking almost innocently around the room. “Who… who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a little... shocking... to write...


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stubbornness causes problems, but also solves problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready to see why this has a dysfunctional family tag?
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Anti being stubborn.  
> So Blood of course.

Mare didn’t realize what the buzzing was until he looked in his pocket.

The makeshift phone was there.

He almost had a heart attack.

**_How in the fuck did Mad place this on me?_ ** He panicked.  **_I made sure to stay away from him how-_ **

_ He has telekinesis, Mare. _

This voice. He knew for sure that this was Nate, and not just his f’d up conscience. He ignored the ringing.  **_Nate-_ **

_ No, stop.  _ Nate sounded angry, but not at him.  _ I don’t want to talk about it. Forget it, just forget it all. It wasn’t real. _

Because no matter how hard Mare was taking it, of course Nate would take it harder.  **_It’s not a good idea to just bury it…_ **

_ I still don’t want to talk about it. _

And then, he was just… gone. Mare couldn’t explain it, but it was like he had made up his own world. Mare had one of those in Nate’s own mind, a place for him to call home. But this was different- just a music room that the soul somehow managed to not only imagine up but lock himself into.

Mare frowned, but the buzzing of the 13th call he got made him realize that something important was going on. Hiding the phone, he took the call. “Ello?”

“Finally.” He could hear Dark. “This is Mare, isn’t it? Where’s Mad?”

“Dunno.” His voice sounded weird to himself. The last time he had heard it out loud…

Well, he wasn’t himself then.

“Google and a few others took him out of the room earlier.” Mare finished. “Mad said something about memory erasure before that.”

Dark grumbled. “Have they poked around with your head at all? Like reality changes or simulations?”

_ Simulation complete… _

“Why do you know that?” Mare’s voice gained an edge. “What was that?!”

Dark did a half sigh, half groan over the phone. “It’s a type of mind control this reality uses against criminals. Call back when Mad gets back, I don’t want to explain this twice.”

Mare wanted to demand him to tell him immediately, but this was Dark, and demands didn’t work on Dark. “Okay.”

“And Mare?”

“Yes?”

“Start figuring a way out.” Mare was slightly surprised. Dark didn’t do requests at all, but he was still surprised to hear the command. Dark wasn’t for this plan in anyway, but now he seemed to despise it. “Get yourself and Mad out of there as quickly as possible, no matter what Mad says. Cut off his head and carry it with you if it comes to that.”

_ Blood… the blood was everywhere… _

_ He loved the blood, the screams, the pain… _

He hated how appealing that sounded to him.

He gulped. He’s rather do that then disobey Dark, no matter how calm he appears around the man. “I’m already thinking up plans.” He said as relaxed as he could, hoping that fooled him.

He couldn’t tell if it did.

  
  


“Why did Mare answer?” Anti asked, flipping his knife in his hand. He loved his knife, the never dulling blade and carved wooden handle. The wood seemed to absorb the blood that hit it, which turned it into a cherry color. He loved his knife.

“Mad was in the middle of something.” Was all Dark said, which made Anti a little annoyed.

“What’s wit ta secrecy?” Anti grumbled. “Jus tell meh!”

“It’s nothing important.” Dark leaned back against his bed, his tone straight. Anyone else would’ve left it there.

Anti wasn’t anyone else.

He glitched off of his own bed, appearing at the foot of Dark’s, sitting indian style. “Darkkkkkkkk.” He whined, just to get on his nerves. “It’s probably not even important, is it? Jus tell meh!”

Shadows formed under him, and he barely glitched out of the way as a shadow flew from the ground.

Now he sat the corner of the bed. He arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

Another shadow aimed for his abdomen. He moved his hand to block it, letting it skewer that instead. He wrinkled his nose. “Never thought ye were the type to like blood on yer bed.”

He clenched his bleeding fist around the shadow, watching as blood ran down the length of the dark substance, onto the covers below it.

This time Dark watched in disdain. “The hotel maids will have a heart attack.”

“I don’t give a fook.” Anti narrowed his eyes, pulling his hand back. He paid no notice as his hand split in half, from the middle of his palm to the inside of his pointer and middle finger. A gush of blood splattered over the bed.

Dark raised his eyebrow. “If we stay here for another night, you’re sleeping in this bed.”

“Will I?”

Dark rolled his eyes. “This is not the time for you to be stubborn.”

“I won’t need ta be stubborn if ye weren’t bein a dick hidin stuff from meh.” He retorted. “Ye wouldn’t be like tis unless it was personal- what’s wrong?”

Anti could feel Dark’s aura spread out through the entire hotel, even though the ego himself still relaxed on the bed. He wasn’t surprised, either- Dark had the shortest temper out of all of them. Anti’s favorite pass time was to poke it.

“Leave it alone.” Dark growled. It was a command.

Anti hated commands.

That’s why, in the span of a second, Dark had Anti’s (lovely) knife poking his throat, the ego himself crouched down over him.

“Don tell me what ta do.” The glitch snarled.

Dark regarded the ego coldly. The one thing about Anti was that he had a rebellious streak bigger than his own ego. Dark knew of it before this mess even started, he heard Anti’s host talk about the ego to his own host. Jack had a deal with Anti, which he sometimes listened to. Sometimes.

It was all harmless but Jack was still worried because of his younger viewers. Mark tried to get Dark to show Anti some sense, with limited success.

“You seemed fine with it just a few hours ago.” Dark commented dully, staring up boredly at the crouching ego. “If I give you someone to slice up, you're a docile cat.” He tilted his head slightly, blinking. “But as soon as it doesn’t go your way, you get prissy. What does that say about you?”

“That I get what I want by whoever I want  _ to get it. _ ” Anti growled. “Jus tell me Dark, and this will be done.”

If this entire argument hadn’t happened, Dark would tell him, but it was something more, now. It’d be like giving up to tell the glitch now, like submitting, and he didn’t want the energy that made up Anti thinking that he was in charge now. He already lets Mad do what he wants, (the ego was undoubtedly smarter than him, so Dark had enough forethought to know that trying to suppress the man would only make it worse. Not to mention the fact that Mare trusts him, and it would split the four down the middle to mess with that. They might not be physically stronger then he or Anti, but they had better talents more fit for the regular world then they did.) and his own energy boiled at the thought of letting Anti one up him in something so small.

So he just kept his cold look glued onto his face, showing neither discomfort nor anger. “Anti.” His voice carried through his aura, which had encompassed not only the room, but the entire hotel. “Get, off.”

Mad or Mare might’ve fled the scene by that point. Regular humans would’ve cried and fainted. His host’s soul was shivering, but Dark knew the soul didn’t know why.

Anti just smiled his too wide strange smile, crouching down low enough to almost sit on him. “I already told ye, Dark.  _ I don’t d̴̂ͅo̴͍͌ commands. _ ”

Anti was unpredictable on the best of days. Regular humans couldn’t understand him, other egos could slightly more, but not enough to truly figure out his thought process.

That was on the best of days.

This, clearly, was not.

On other days (not normal others days but  _ bad  _ other days which was what he was clearly having because he wouldn’t do this on normal days-) he was dangerous to be around. They all had a rule -if you’re upset with someone else, fight it out if need be- but never,  _ never,  _ aim for the head. Above the neck was off limits, since that’s where they all kept their host’s souls. A punch to the jaw was fine, but everything stopped when anything worst was aimed towards their face.

On bad days, Anti was more than just unpredictable.

It was at that moment that Dark realized that he wasn’t just having an off day, but a bad day instead.

And he had let the glitch not only get the high ground above him, (the part of him made from belief seemed to scream something and his energy decided to remember at that exact time some bloopers they shot for a crossover with him and Anti but now was not the time-) but he had let him bring a knife closer then he ever let weapons get to his mind.

And he hadn’t even thought to guard Mark yet with his energy.

His trust in Anti surprised him in that moment. He didn’t have to worry about Anti on good days, he trusted Anti on good days.

He didn’t know yet of bad days.

Shadows shot up from besides him, and Anti glitched back onto his own bed. Dark made sure to keep his movements relaxed as he sat up from his pillows, grabbing a book on his bedside and opening it.

“Wow Dark.” Anti cackled from his bed, staring at him with bright green eyes. The room was dark besides a lamp in between their two beds, but it barely brightened up the room. Behind Anti, the curtains to the night outside were opened, and he blended into the darkness behind him. “Ye almost hit me. I’m surprised.”

Dark scoffed, tension slowly leaving his shoulders. Note to self, make sure Anti’s not on a bad day before letting him do what he wants. “You act as if I’ve never injured you before.”

“Have ye?”

Dark stopped at that. He has, he’s sure. Not since they’ve left the warehouse, but in it. They’ve been forced to fight against each other before. That’s how he knew decapitation would work. He tried it out on Anti. Instead of questioning the glitch’s strange question, he said. “If you really wanted to know, the reason Mad wasn’t picking up the phone is because Google and the other scientists there are erasing his mind.”

Anti paused. “That… won’t work, right?”

“Correct.” Dark thinks Anti deflated slightly, there. “If Mad plays his cards right, he can just pretend to have forgotten, then he can get away with whatever he wants while acting innocent the entire time.”

It’s was hard to tell, but his glowing eyes let Dark see the other man’s lips tilt into a frown. “That wasn’t so hard. What was bugging ye so bad?”

“I was thinking about the mind chips we were informed about. If I had a mind chip and a newly mind erased ego, I would choose that time to install it.”

Anti was silent for a moment, before grinning. “Aww, ye do care.”

Dark gave him a flat look. “Do you want an ego with telekinesis and an abundance of information on us tracking us down? Not only does he know of our souls, but he apparently knows of a way to kill us as well. Not only that, but his host’s soul is still a friend of Mark’s. I don’t want a headache for leaving him behind or killing him.”

Anti’s answer was cut off by a phone ringing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They all have a complicated relationship that includes a lot of blood but it’s fine they’ll work it out- actually, they probably won’t. Ever.  
> Mare I’m sorry.


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowing how to act will get you far. Knowing your limits will get you farther.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a makeshift map of what AU Europe looks like but it’s not to scale so don’t try to think of it like that. I just put it random mile numbers.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> ...none?

The Mad’s fake mind wipe went all the way back to the beginning of his real capture. He didn’t know of anyone besides the egos.

He has to admit, Eye Guy and Google were handling the new him pretty well, all trusting words and encouragement and calmness. If he was actually memory wiped, then he might believe them.

“I have a question to ask of you… Mad.” Eye Guy was even calling him by his name, as if to gain his trust more. Google still called him the Scientist, but it was a win in his book.

“Yes Mr. Ervan?” He patted himself on the back for his acting. Yes, he stole it all from his host, but he was still proud of himself.

“I believe you remember the other two we had with you in the beginning.” He nodded, because now he was interested in where this was going. “Well, during their escape, they tried to make you and your friend go with them. When you refused, they injured you terribly- you lost some of your memories because of it.”

He wanted to ask why he was hooked up to a chair with screws in his head just to see the man sputter as he tried to figure out an answer to his question.

Instead, he frowned. “Why did they do that?”

So what if he sounded like a child, that’s what innocent I’m-not-faking-it sounded like to him.

“Because you knew how to end them, permanently.” Eye Guy said.

Mad was genuinely surprised- he had forgotten all about that. Of course they wanted to know more about the egos’ weaknesses.

“Oh, yeah…” he said as softly as possible. “I guess that could be why.”

Maybe it was the fact that his host’s counterpart had a baby face like his host did himself. That’s why it was so easy to act like a child.

_ I feel like I should take offense to that. _ Mat mumbled, before rubbing nonexistent hands together.  _ So, what's happening now? _

**_They think I’ve forgotten everything._ ** Mad replied.  **_They’re trying to make me spill about how to kill us._ **

Mat shivered.  _ I regret ever becoming curious about it. How do they even know that we know? _

Mad chuckled inwardly.  **_I might’ve told them at some point. And don’t regret it, because of you, we all know how important your souls are to us. We would’ve all died by now if we didn’t know._ **

Happy soul equals a happy mind, and Mat’s soul did brighten considerably from that. 

Souls were a thing to be fascinated by in itself. They have the memories of their entire life, but souls don’t taint, no matter what. Not even the worst people can taint their souls, the soul always stays pure and innocent.

Like a child. A baby.

Mad was essentially talking to child Mat with all of adult Mat’s memories. It was strange, but intriguing at the same time. And souls never hide anything, they’re expressive and loud in their emotions.

Before they were pulled into this mess, Mad’s big project was trying to figure out what made a soul tick. The answer still eludes him.

“They’re a danger to you and your friend.” Eye Guy continued, and it was easy to tell where he was going. “If you tell us what you know, we can protect you better.”

Mad was so pleased with how much he managed to dupe the human that he didn’t even realize he had let Mat hear in on the conversation.

_ He just tried to erase your memories, and he expects you to remember? _

Mad hummed in agreement, his thoughts so far away that he didn’t even realize Mat could hear what was going on. “I… I don’t really remember how to, exactly.” He said as sheepishly as possible, rubbing the back of his neck. They were letting him walk around freely, now that they bought he was completely on their side. “They must’ve hit me pretty hard.”

He relished in the frown on Eye Guy’s face.

He couldn’t enjoy it for to long, though. Google still walked behind him, hand that could render him unconscious twitching in a silent display of power.

He really, really didn’t like the robot.

He made sure to go all out when he entered the cell again. “Mare!” He said dramatically, and he could hear Mat laughing. 

The ego was sitting on a bench on the side of the room, and whatever problem he had earlier seemed to have ebbed away, if only slightly. The bewildered look Mare gave him as Mad moved closer was a sight to see. “Uh, Yes?”

“You’re Okay!” Mad contemplated going in for a hug, but then decided that he really didn’t want to. He wasn’t trying to act human for Eye Guy, just oblivious. “You’re not to hurt, right?”

Mare looked completely confused, and from the corner of his eye, he could see Google shift, as if about to move forward.

If Mare didn’t play along, there was a high chance that he would go through the mind erasure process too, and Mad didn’t know how well of an actor Mare was.

Google did something that he couldn’t see, and something clicked in Mare’s eyes. The panic that overtook the other ego almost concerned him. “Uh, yeah- I’m fine. I was more, Uh, worried about you.”

Mad couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes.

Mare’s confusion went up a notch.

Eye Guy stopped Mad from saying anything else. He waved Google out of the room, closing the door and clasping his hands, excited. “Now, I know you might not remember much from your  _ amnesia _ ,” he looked pointedly at Mare, and Mad wanted to groan. Way to obvious. “But I would like to know what you do remember, so we know where we can go from there.”

He took a seat next to Mare, only slightly surprised when the ego shifted away. Mare was still acting strange around him.

“I remember that someone took us away from our hosts.” He decided to say. 

“Yeah, someone…” Mare grumbled.

_ He is terrible at acting. _

**_Yes, he really is-_ ** Mad realized then that Mat had been listening in. He promptly shut him off.

_ Hey!  _

Mad ignored him.

Mad lightly smacked Mare’s arm. The latter jumped at the sudden contact, staring strangely at him. Mad never did anything like that, he just hoped Mare could realize it as well. He needed Mare to do something before Google came back in or Eye Guy left. “Be nicer, Mare!” He scolded. “This man has been nothing but homely to us!”

Mare looked away from Eye Guy to stare at Mad.

Mad winked.

Mare’s face resembled a child figuring out that the circle shape did indeed go into the circle box, and not the square box. Mad sighed inwardly- was this how normal things functioned?

“I’ll try.” Mare smirked.

“Good.” Mad smiled, looking back at Eye Guy. “Mister, who’s in charge of this operation?”

Eye Guy smiled patiently. “That’s classified information, I’m sorry.”

Mad glances at Mare.

Mare looked back, before turning towards Eye Guy. “ **_Can you bring him here to talk?_ ** ”

  
  


“I was told you wanted me to call?”

Dark strained his ears, making sure that the man on the other side of the phone sounded normal. After satisfying that curiosity, he spoke. “Yes. I need both you and Mare to group back with us.”

Mad’s surprise was clear. “What? Why?”

After making sure that Mare could hear as well (he really didn’t want to restate this-) he explained what he knew of the mind chip.

“I’ve read something about it.” Mad admitted slowly after he ended. “I read that their trying to make it connect to our energy, but I didn’t get much else on it. It was called a Reality Mixer in the data files.”

The phone jostled for a moment. “That’s why you want us to leave?” Mare asked, and Dark had a feeling that he just stole the phone from Mad. “We’re heading towards the vortex right now.”

Dark’s eyebrows furrowed. “Do you know the location of the vortex?”

“It’s in Washington, DC.”

Both Dark and Anti blinked.

“There’s a city in the American part of Europe named Washington, DC.” Mad explained, wrestling the phone back. “Out of respect, most likely.”

“Your information is from a reliable source?” Dark felt the need to ask.

“As reliable as someone brainwashed can be.” Mad quipped.

“Call me when you escape.” Dark sighed. “Make sure you know where you are.”

“Roger That.”

Dark hung up, pocketing the phone and rolling over to the other side of the bed. Under the guise of trying to get some rest, he closed his eyes to think in peace.

He couldn’t, though, since he could feel Anti staring at him.

“Watching someone while they try to sleep is considered disturbing.” Dark murmured once he realized any peace he was trying to get wouldn’t happen. 

“I love being disturbin, Dark.” Anti drawled, and Dark could tell he was grinning.

“You’re like that one man from a movie I remember Mark seeing…” Dark pretended to think. “Edward, I think was his name.”

Anti gave a squawk of indignation. “I’m  _ not  _ a’ stalkerish vampire tat glows in ta sun.”

“Then stop acting like one.” Dark retorted.

Anti huffed. “I’m bored, it’s been forever since weh done something!”

“We destroyed half a government building three hours ago.” Dark mumbled. Finally giving up on his peace, Dark sat up, gliding out of his bed and adjusting his suit. “If you’re too impatient to wait, then we can leave now.”

“Such harsh words, Dark.” Anti grinned. “Ye love to wound me.”

Dark sent a cold look his way to insure that the glitch knew Dark was still upset with him, before moving into shadows. He appeared in a closed cafe just a bit away from the hotel. He didn’t know exactly how Anti’s teleportation works, but he hoped it took a moment for him to find Dark.

No such luck, the glitch was there a few seconds afterwards.

Dark sent him off to go find a map, hoping it took the glitch a little more time. He took a seat at a bar stool, resting his head in his hands.

Something felt wrong.

Not outside, but in his body.

His energy curled around his host’s soul instinctively.  **_Mark, are you feeling well?_ **

_ Is the big bad Dark worried about little ol’ me? _

Dark almost regretted asking the question, but the soul’s safety was more important, no matter how annoying it could be.

**_Seriously, Mark._ ** Dark grumbled.  **_Did anything strange happen that I didn’t notice?_ **

_...no?  _ The soul sounded unsure.  _ I don’t think so. It’s crowded in here, though, more so then it was at the beginning. Are you gaining weight or something? _

**_Maybe you’re finally growing._ **

_ That’s hurtful. _ The soul laughed.  _ I’m shorter than I’ve ever been! What am I, 5 inches? _

**_You’re short even for a soul._ **

_ Half the size, twice the heart. _

**_You don’t have a heart right now._ **

_ Half the size, twice the demonic energy. _

Anti came back with a map then, and Dark ended the conversation. He couldn’t imagine how boring it was in there for the soul. While he had been in the same situation for most of his existence, at least he could see and hear. Dark couldn’t let Mark see, since Dark quite enjoyed the freedom of being able to cut someone open without Mark complaining.

Besides, at least Dark wasn’t killing everyone- it was mostly self defense. Mostly.

It took a few moments for Dark to pinpoint exactly where he wanted to go next. They would cross into another country, each of them would have to go at least 40 miles to make it, though.

The town they went to was a lot smaller than Dark thought it would be -they didn’t even have a hotel- which lead to the problem of sleeping. It was the middle of the night, the only ones still out were police.

And of course Anti wasn’t helping with his late acting exhaustion. The glitch wasn’t holding an ounce of his own weight, it made him look drunk to those around him.

Dark had to put them in an old rundown motel, before he collapsed from exhaustion as well. 40 miles was pushing his limits. At the most, he could go 50, at the absolute most.

He never wanted to have to go 50.

Sleep was a heaven sent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half the size, twice the demonic energy, is my favorite saying in this book at the moment.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, new old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been waiting to post this one. Dark and Mare’s main problem has already been introduced, and to a lesser extent, Mad’s. Now his problem can be as well as anti’s. Fun times.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Low body horror, nothing really.

Dark was up before Anti, and he spent the alone time getting a coffee and entertaining the soul he had for the day. Mark was most likely going to bug him at some point if he didn’t talk to him enough. Better to get it out of the way.

Anti glitched into existence on the opposite side of the booth in the diner Dark sat in. It was early, the place had just opened. It was the only reason Dark didn’t berate the ego on using his powers in the open.

It took a moment for anyone to notice the new face as well. It was a girl just over 25 that notice first- someone with fair skin and a face full of freckles, light brown hair in two braids.

“What would ya like, mister?” She asked, walking up with a notepad. Anti gave her his answer, and she grinned, blue eyes sparkling. “Comin right up- and on the house, for both of ya.”

Dark arched an eyebrow, humming. “Really?”

The girl nodded. “‘S least I could do for the person who saved meh.”

She grinned at Anti.

Anti blinked. “...huh?”

  
  
  


Mad hung up, a large frown covering his face. They were in the bridge, so it seemed. Almost everyone in there was glassy eyed from Mare’s words before. “Right when we were getting to the good stuff, I have to leave.” He mumbled.

Mare was afraid that he would have to pull the ego off the aircraft himself, but the door behind them groaned from some sort of impact.

“The Scientist, Number 14.1, now renamed to The Siren.” Google's voice sounded. “Open the door immediately for neutralization.”

He’s never seen Mad change plan so quickly.

The mad ego grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards a side door. “Maybe it is time to leave.” He said, slightly nervous.

Something had happened, something that made Mad even more wary of Google then before. He was… scared.

In just a few days, this place had managed to leave a bigger mark on them then in the months they were locked up before. Mare had never wished so hard for Anti to show up right then, just to end everyone on the ship.

  
  
  


The girl didn’t seem surprised. “I knew ya wouldn’t remember.” She said. “It was years ago, but I’m still ever so grateful. Ya saved me from ah group o’ thugs that were causin problems in our town.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember that.” Anti said, nodding his head, and it didn’t look like he was lying. “Emiline, right?” The girl beamed at him. “I remember ye.”

Dark arched his eyebrow even more. Anti must’ve been taking some memories from the counterpart of this world.

“You said your name was Jack Septic.” Emiline grinned. “Your partner seemed to be upset about that at the time.”

“Robin was a stickler fer ta rules.” Anti waved off the question with a smile, and he seemed way to relaxed for Dark’s preference.

Emiline nodded. “Where is he?” She frowned slightly. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine.” Anti assured. “We got split up after a while. I got put with a new group.” He jabbed his thumb at Dark. “Tis is Agent Warf.”

Anti had completely relaxed, and he was talking to this girl like he had known her forever. It was unnerving and slightly worrying.

“Pleasure ta meet ya.” The girl smiled. “Ya must be ah saint to deal wit Jack all ta time.”

Anti squawked undingently. “Ey, I saved yer sorry arse! Ye jus said ye were grateful.”

“And I am.” Emiline nodded, as if placating him. “Ya did it while pissin off the thugs at ta same time. Either ya got a lot’a balls or ya really stupid. That’s why I’m complimenten ya new partner.”

“Not just a partner.” Anti said. “He’s ta new leader of tis group. I don’t work in partnerships no more.”

“Glad ta see ya movin up.” Emiline smiled. “I hope ya keep ya head on ya-“

“Emiline!” A voice barked from the back. “Serve ta new customers!”

With a wink to Anti, she was gone.

Dark arched his eyebrow. “That was a sight to see.”

“Shut it, Mark.” Anti said, which caught him off guard. “Why are weh out here again, either way? Ye haven’t told me the op details and I know ye didn’t know bout her.”

Dark blinked, confusion slowly spreading through his features. “Anti? What are you going on about?”

“Well, ye took me out here and lef’ Mat an’ Nate back at ta safe house so either ye got somethin ta tell me or ye just wanted to buy me breakfast.” Anti gave a short laugh. “Didn’t know ye were a romantic, Mark.”

Dark sighed, about to slap the strange glitch across the face. “Anti. Listen to what you're saying.”

“I know what I’m sayin-“ Anti frowned, blinking. He looked around him, almost confused at where he was. “Uh…”

“What was that.” It wasn’t a question.

“I… I dunno.” Anti replied. “Never knew tat was possible.”

Dark’s eyes bore into Anti’s, unamused. Anti gulped. “I… I guess I kinda thought I was Agent Septic.”

  
  


It wasn’t hard getting out of the aircraft, even if it was airborne. Mare got someone to give them a ride down via lifeboat.

Yes, a lifeboat. As in, they got in lifeboat, and then dropped it several miles to the ground below.

It didn’t take them to long to heal, a thirty minute fix. It hurt like hell, and it was cold, and Mad was surprised by both of those facts, but he couldn’t really do anything about it afterwards, could he?

When he could finally walk again, he had to climb out of the minor ditch the lifeboat caused to see where they were. It was dark, and they had landed in a forest. A bit away, he could see a gas station of some kind.

“Up we go.” He grabbed Mare’s bicep to get him going, and the latter groaned.

“Fuck you and your ideas.” He said angrily. “The lower half of my body was mush twenty minutes ago, and I don’t even know if my ribs are back yet.”

“We got out.” Mad said dully. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

The other flipped him off, clearly angry.

So he started without him, moving towards the lit up station. He phoned Dark on the way. The shadowy ego seemed to preoccupied to notice the pain laced in his voice, which was a plus, because he didn’t want to have to explain falling from an aircraft.

The place was indeed a gas station, but It didn’t have anyone working it. It only had gas pumps, not even a place to get snacks.

He sat down on the only other thing there (a bench) and sighed. He was still annoyed that he had to leave. At least he got some more encoded information that he could play with in his free time.

Mare had appeared at some point, and he was shuffling around, testing out his newly healed legs (and the rest of his basically new body). He walked out onto the main road, before freezing. “Mad.”

“Yes?” Mad said as lightly as possible, putting a grin to his face. Happy attitude equaled more work done.

“Jeeps.” Mare explained, which immediately crushed his attitude. “Several of them.”

Mad moved forward, studying them as the military jeeps drove closer. There was way to many of them.

Mare had started moving back to where he was, but Mad just continued to watch the jeeps, slightly frozen in fear but more curious of who was in the jeeps.

Mare sprinted past Mad, grabbing his arm to get him to move with him. “Now’s not the time!” He urged.

Mad always thought it was a good time to study things. Picking up his pace, he threw his arm behind him, using his powers to push the head Jeep’s front wheels. It groaned, skidding on ice before toppling over, stopping the other cars behind them. Seconds later, men started piling out.

“Did you get a hold of Dark?” Mare huffed as they ran on the road. Even though the cold and heat didn’t hit them as hard as humans, the running in parkas did make Mad slightly woozy.

“Yes.” Mad considered running into the woods, but he didn’t know the layout enough to do that without getting lost. “We’ll meet them… in a… week. In Britain's France. Town called… Baylif.”

Mare turned around, letting out a piercing scream. Several of the closest men fell to their knees, clutching their ears, as one farther back threw something in front of them.

Electricity crackled from the strange grenade, but the two kept running, ignoring the slight sting made for stopping regular humans.

Mad laughed. Unless that electric bomb only lasted for a few seconds, then they had a couple minutes of a head start. He picked up the speed, planning to use every second of it.

He did not need to see Google again so soon.

_ What’s going on? _ He could hear Mat ask.  _ I don’t think I’ve ever run this much… _

**_Our power lies in our mind, not in our lungs._ **

Mare heard it before Mad did, grabbing his arm to stop him from getting ran over by the car that screeched to a stop in front of them. The car unlocked, and the passenger window climbed down.

“Get in.” Someone said from inside. 

Rather this one random person then several armed men.

Mad got in.

Mare followed him as he climbed in the back, shutting it afterwards. Immediately, the person in the driver’s seat locked the doors, slamming on the gas.

For the first time Mad wasn’t completely sure with his decision. Sure, the worst this person could do was pull a gun on them, but something about them left him… wary.

They drove in silence for a few minutes before the person spoke in a feminine voice. “Wanna explain to me what was going on back there?”

“I’d rather not.” Mad said, leaning back and glancing behind them. Only darkness to be found. They were also driving towards a town.

“I would think that me saving your ass again would entitle me to some information.” The girl said, pulling into a back road towards an apartment building.

Mad raised an eyebrow. “We’ve never met before.”

Mare, as usual, stayed silent, looking at Mad to finish this conversation. The girl parked the car. “Hmm, lost your memories or something?” She turned around to look at them, and Mad sucked in a breath. “Am I not rememberable?”

Mad had lost his train of thought for a moment, staying silent with a slightly parted mouth. Stephanie smiled, obviously amused. “First time I’ve ever gotten you speechless, Matthew. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huehuehuehuehue....
> 
> See the parallels? One was saved and one saved the other. I’m proud of that.


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 99 problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea of both parts of this chapter, but I feel like I’m just not talented enough to put the correct words on paper (or the screen) so I’m sorry.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> ...none?

Dark didn’t know how to deal with this particular situation.

“You… you thought you were your host’s counterpart?”

Anti looked almost as confused as him. “I was jus thinkin, tryin to figure out somethin to say ta that girl- and then ma’ mind jus went off.”

“You must not of crushed the counterpart man’s mind as well as we thought.” Dark figured.

“Excuse me, I crushed it well enough.” Anti retorted. “Not ma’ fault ma’ host an’ ‘is counterparts are jus really stubborn.”

The girl, Emiline, brought back a stack of pancakes, two coffees, and eggs with bacon. “Enjoy boys.”

Luckily, she didn’t stick around, since more people started to crowd the dinner. Dark took a moment to start eating before speaking again. “Stubbornness is not an attractive trait.”

“Depends on ta subject.” Anti winked, as if he had some inside secret.

“In this subject, it’s not.” Dark growled, becoming more annoyed by the second. “Handle this immediate. I do not need you switching between yourself and the agent on a moment’s notice.”

Anti narrowed his eyes. “Don’ pretend like tis guy even has a chance. His mind is weak. His body is weak.”

Dark gave an unamused stare. “Did you make up that line, or did your host?”

Anti grinned. “Jack did. He’s really finicky whenever he makes those kinds of videos- never lets me fully out ta play.”

Dark didn’t have those problems with Mark. Whenever it was time to make a video with any ego, he usually called on Dark to play them. It wasn’t to hard for Dark to switch personalities either- most of his energy is his own belief, but some of it is Warfstache energy, or Google energy, or any other Iplier ego energy (that’s probably how Anti worked as well, he did perfectly intimidate Sneeplestein’s character a little bit ago). He had it all, but it all didn’t start out as his, and there wasn’t enough room or energy to have two complete egos from one person.

Don’t ask him how Google works, he still doesn’t know.

“I would feel sorry for you, but that means I would need to feel empathy.” Dark drawled. “But I’ve never had that problem myself.”

“Fook off.”

When Emiline came back to clear their table, she also handed Anti a paper. “Call me when ya off work.” She smiled. “I’d love ta talk with someone new. This town’s so small.”

Anti smirked, running a hand through his hair. Dark didn’t know if Anti was Anti or the agent at that moment. “I need ta pay ye back fer this breakfast anyway.”

She giggled. “See ya later, Mr. Septic.”

Dark wait until she turned around, before grabbing the man across the table and moving them out of the diner through the shadows.

They landed in the alley besides the small diner. Dark turned, ready to slap some sense into the glitch, when someone else spoke first.

“Wh-What?” Some man squeaked. He was big and burly, with several tattoos crossing on his arms and a bandana on his forehead. His voice sounded like a mouse, though.

“Get lost.” Dark told the man.

It didn’t look like he was going to, until he saw Anti. His face turned into one of hate and fear. “The toxic man has returned.” He murmured, before turning and sprinting away.

Dark was set on just forgetting the probably idiotic thug, when Anti groaned behind him. “What?”

Anti crossed his arms. “That was a lowlife in that gang Emiline was talkin about. I remember seein that face somewhere.”

“And I care why?” Like a puny man in the low ranks of a gang could scare him.

“I don’t give a fook if ye care.” Anti replied. “Agent Septic thought he got rid of all of em.”

“It’s hard to get rid of an organized gang.” Dark said, and he could feel a migraine setting in. Strange. “The top men in the gang all need to be taken out, and that’s close to impossible to achieve.”

“That’s why it’s annoyin, Dark.” Anti growled. “I was positive I got em all!”

Dark arched an eyebrow. “I?”

“Ta agent, whatever. I really don’ care right now.” Anti wrinkled his nose. “I’ll crush ta mind some more later. Right now, I want ta finish something that counterpart started.”

Dark was definitely unamused. “You want to wipe an entire gang off the map? One you don’t know the size or strength of, and you want to do this in a day or two? We are on a time crunch, here.”

Anti grinned. “I do know about ta Whiteheads. And Dark, If tis gang gave themselves such a stupid name, then do ye really think it’s tat big?”

“You never know.” Dark shrugged. “I don’t know enough about this reality. What’s not to say this is just a smaller branch, and the actual problem is in a city miles away?”

“That is ta problem.” Anti said. “Or, it was. Septic already shut down ta big guys, I’m jus cleaning up ta rest.” A knife appeared in his hand. “Maybe cleaning isn't ta right word.”

  
  


They both quickly realized that this wasn’t remotely like the Stephanie they knew from their world.

This one, only going by Steph, wore ripped jeans and a dusty brown shirt under a leather jacket that went with her combat boots, hair down and curled. Her apartment held several different knives, from pocket knives to butcher knives. The apartment was sparse with personal items, but Steph looked right at home, placing a bowl of cat food on the balcony before lounging on the couch.

“So, you’re the Mat from a different dimension? A dimension where certain people have powers, and the government kidnapped you and brought you here.”

That was his backstory. Pretending to be Matthew was easier than telling her the full truth. “The less said the better.” Mad said. “Now, can you tell me who you are?”

She didn’t need to know that they were married in his reality.

Steph tilted her head. “How much do you know about this world’s history?”

“Not much.” Mare answered, because he knew Mad wouldn’t answer truthfully, his ego was to much. “Something with zombies..?”

Steph sighed. “The Americas are overrunned by infected people, not dead, but crazy murderers. There are hundreds of small towns- small communities set up against these infected. We were both orphans brought in from different states, so we grew up together there.”

“Is this story going to explain why you are in Germany?” Mad asked, not losing patience but wanting more details.

“Someone’s impatient.” Steph smirked. “Anyway, there’s this test they give 17 year olds, see’s how smart they are. If you pass, the American government will take you over to their land in Europe. You, or Mat, passed, so they showed up one day in the middle of the night, and that’s the last I saw of him.”

“I’m smart no matter what dimension.” Mad joked, causing Mare to punch his arm with a slight snicker.

“Egotistical as well.” Steph remarked. “Anyway, I left the town a few years later- it was cramped and I’d rather die doing my own thing then live in fear in that wretched place. I travelled to D.C. with a few others, but only me and another guy made it. Anyone that can make it to the docking point -and has enough money- will get sent to one of these ‘transitioning towns’. If you’re deemed to be a valuable member of society, then you’ll be able to leave. If you’re not, then you’ll probably stay here for the rest of your life. I have a few more months before my request goes through and I can leave this place.”

“And our dimension thinks their problems are bad.” Mare sighed. “Do you have hot chocolate?” He loved his hot chocolate.

Steph raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Yeah, I can make some. You want a Diet Coke, Mat?”

“Please.”

She knew enough about him to know his Diet Coke addiction, but she didn’t recognized Mare, or Nate, at all. But just looking at her sent not only memories from Matthew’s mind, but memories from his counterpart’s broken mind to him. They both felt the same way about her.

 _Mad,_ **_what_ ** _is going on?!_ Mat could feel something coming from the ego.

 **_We met the Steph from this dimension._ ** Mad found no good reason to hide it from him. Surprisingly, that made him quiet down, and Mad felt his soul sadden slightly. He frowned. **_We’re getting closer to the vortex- we’ll see your Stephanie soon enough._ **

That only made Mat feel slightly better, so Mad went with wrapping his energy around the soul as his way of silently comforting it, easing it into whatever sleep it could get.

“Have you been talking to your host of late?” Mad asked suddenly as Steph went to the kitchen. Mare startled from his far off gaze to look at him.

“He’s created something of a music room in this mind.” Mare said in response. “No clue it was even possible, but it always leaves this little song in the back of my head, even though he’s not actually talking.”

“Really?” Mad asked, stifling a yawn. When his host’s soul falls asleep, he instantly loses most of his own energy. He could use a good ten hour sleep at the moment. “I should see if I can do something of the same. It would be boring to be stuck in your own mind, without being able to speak or create anything to entertain yourself.”

“How’s Matthew feeling about this entire thing?” Mare asked suddenly. “How much does he even know?”

“Very little.” Mad admitted. “And I intend to keep it that way.”

Steph came back with a drink for herself, a hot chocolate, and a can of Diet Coke. Placing it on the coffee table, she leaned back. “So, you guys have nowhere to stay.”

“Indeed.”

She took another look around her apartment. “There’s a spare room. No bed but there’s extra blankets and a mattress. One of you can take the mattress and the other sleep out here. Or you two can share if you’re...“

Her eyes shifted between them with curiosity, and Mad didn’t understand until Mare sputtered, face flushing. “Um, we’re, we’re not-“

Steph shrugged. “Just putting it out there.”

Mad blinked, surprised that the entire conversation flew by without him, before frowning at Mare. “Am I not attractive to you?”

Mare spazzed for a moment as Steph snickered. “Mad-t, that’s not funny-“

“It is.” Steph added in quietly.

“Just friends!”

Mad found it amusing how much this flustered the ego. He guessed it was never completely clear on how Mare was in relationships, the fandom never thought about it for him either, but the whole ‘Mad Scientist’ thing kind of said all that needs to be said on the subject. He pouted, deciding to go further and adopting the role of how a human might act for Steph. “You don’t think I’m handsome?” He set down his Coke, lungeing to hug his friend. “Naaate!”

Mare seemed to finally see that he was just showing off for Steph, and as if a switch had turned, he followed along. “It’s okay, Mat, you’re very pretty, don’t worry.”

Mad tightened his arms slightly in retaliation, but went with it. “I’m pretty?”

“The prettiest.”

Steph gave off a snorting laugh, getting up. “Well, you two can sort that out, I’m going to bed.”

Mad was about to let her go, when a thought came to mind. “Wait, why were you out there to begin with? When you found us?”

Steph just smiled as she entered her room. “A girl’s got her own secrets.”

Just after the door closed, Mad untangled himself from Mare, getting up and moving to where Steph pointed for the guest room. “That was only slightly annoying.”

“You tell me.” Mare grumbled. “You’re not the one who got hugged! And who says you can have the guest room?”

Mad rolled his eyes. “We don’t need to sleep, Mare. The only reason I’m going to is because I put Matthew to sleep.” Mare still stood up to follow, closing the door behind him. Mad looked at him curiously. “You seemed against sharing a bed just a few moments ago.”

“No! I-“ Mare growled when he realized it was just Mad again teasing him. He settled against the door, watching Mad grab a blanket and pillow as he settled down. “I don’t know where there are cameras and where there aren’t, but her living room has to many windows. I feel to open out there.”

“I’ve already disabled the camera in here.” Mad replied. “And the camera in the living room will have lost footage from the time we were in there.”

Mare couldn’t help but shudder. “Personal privacy isn’t a thing here, apparently.”

Mad gave him a look, getting onto his elbows for a moment. “You do realize that your entire backstory started with you possessing your host, then kidnapping my host and planning on doing who knows what with him? Privacy does not seem like a strong suit of yours.”

That hit Mare harder then Mad thought it would. Before he could ask about it, Mare retorted with, “Didn’t you start out in the Five Nights Musical?”

Mad shrugged, head hitting the pillow. “I have many beginnings and barely any consistency. Adding onto the fact that ‘mad scientist’ seems to fit somewhere in everyone’s thoughts, Matthew shouldn’t’ve been surprised with my unhinged nature at the beginning.”

Mare was silent for a moment, which caused Mad to start to drift, only to be brought to bare lucidity by a question. “If there was enough belief to bring us to life, then why didn’t our origins come to life as well?”

Mad looked up, opening his eyes. “...I’m not quite sure, to be honest with you. I’m just glad they’re not true, considering your backstory as well as Dark’s. Anti doesn’t even have a backstory, and if you use his first real showing then his host would be dead, and I would have several different backstories. If I only had one, then I would likely be horribly disfigured from the fire in the Freddy’s musical. Now, these talks are a nice change but my energy is spent at the moment.”

Mare didn’t answer, and Mad took that as his acknowledgment to that fact and closed his eyes again, trying to force himself into sleep.

The bad thing was, Mad never really needed to sleep, so he didn’t really… know how.

Mare must’ve noticed his restlessness, because right when Mad was starting to give up, he heard singing.

The song was soft, the lyrics more than a little creepy, but the voice itself was soothing enough to break some tension in his muscles. Mare might not of know that he was still awake if he thought about it. He wasn’t a chatty person, the most he ever talked to was Mad. On top of that, he only sang if it was important. It almost felt like he was afraid of his own voice.

Nevertheless, the humming tune he sung did help Mad relax, and he listened to the song all the way through, this time forcing himself to stay awake to listen to the end.

Mare had a different vocal set then Nate, most certainly. He could easily reach a low enough tone to add the right amount of itchiness to the song -it was calming and also downright terrifying.

Mad drifted off wishing Mare would use his voice more than when they were just in danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steph= Alternate dimension Stephanie   
> Stephanie= Main dimension Stephanie (where the egos are from)
> 
> Note- Take what you will from this chapter- I really don’t know what I wanted to do with it myself, so I made it blurry on purpose.  
> The Dark/Anti part of this chapter gave me an idea. Gang Story next? Haha probably not. Maybe… Dunno yet.


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you have to finish what others started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fell in love with the Anti/Dark part of this chapter.  
> Still love the Mad/Mare part.  
> I have problems.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> -Angst  
> -Anti (I’m turning Anti into a warning of his own.)

“Buy the map of Europe.” Mad told Mare as they walked. “I’m searching for an electronics store.”

Mare nodded, and Mad could tell that he felt calmer after singing last night. “I’ll get some food as well. And, you know, a  _ car. _ ”

Mad blinked. He was so excited to see what kind of technology this world had readily available that he had spent all his time thinking about how to steal it. “Um, good.” He tried to play it off, but Mare’s smirk told him it was to late. “Stay as inconspicuous as possible.”

They broke up, setting a meet up point in a few hours at Steph’s house. If either was more than thirty minutes late, then the other was coming to get them.

Mad walked into a regular superstore and went to the electronics section, cutting off several cameras in that section as well as a bigger bulk in another section. He walked by some store managers quickly walking towards one of the cameras and calculated how long he would have until he had to turn them back on, before they weren’t called a malfunction anymore.

He slipped into a back room, grabbing a employee’s vest before leaving for the electronic checkout. Luckily, this being a small town and it being early in the morning, there were only a few people browsing.

There were several extra phones, tablets, and even a few small laptops under the counter. Taking a store bag, he picked up the laptop, disabling the store lock and placing it in the bag, doing the same with two phones and several tablets. He giggled in giddiness, this was Christmas!

“Excuse me?”

Mad sighed in irritation, wrinkling his nose. Some customer that needed help. His eyes went black, and he stood up looking at her, making sure that his eyes turned back once he was completely up. “Yes?”

The woman had turned stark white- she had seen his eyes change. She blinked, shuddering slightly. Even though it could of been a trick of the light, she still left with a ‘never mind.’

Mad looked around, throughly disappointed that there wasn’t anything cool, before shedding the uniform vest and grabbing the bag before leaving.

If Mad had an easy job, then Mare’s was a walk in the park. He actually bought the map they needed (with some stolen money, but oh well-) and got directions to a car dealership. An hour and one sore voice later, Mare drove up to Steph’s house in a sleek black Dodge Charger.

“Inconspicuous.” Mad was waiting by the door.

Mare shrugged, throwing him a pair of clothes. “It has four seats and it’s fast.” He retorted. “Replace the license plate and you do your thing, and it’ll be fine.”

Mad glared at him, before grumbling, pulling a plate off of a car a few apartments down and bringing it over with his powers, doin the same with the charger. “Get me some tools.”

By the time they were done it had turned dark, the wind picking up and the temperature dropping. Steph pulled them inside (“powers or not, everyone can get a cold-“) and started dinner, having them chop up vegetables. Before they started, though, they both got changed. Their clothes weren’t really bloodied at all, but they were the same clothes they’ve been wearing for months- they were disgusting. And Mare knew what Mad liked to wear, so it was just a win all around.

They didn’t need as much food as regular humans, but when the Alfredo started to smell heavenly, they both sat down for the meal.

“Where are you guys going next?” Steph asked between bites of food.

“Best if we don’t say.” Mad replied breezily. “We’ll be gone before they find us again, but if you're questioned it’ll be better if you don’t know anything. They have lie detectors.”

Mare finished his food. “They are not fun.”

Mad suppressed a shiver as Steph spoke. “Very secretive.” She mumbled, frowning. “I might not have powers or advance weapons (my gun license was taken away-) but I’ll be fine if they interrogated me. I can take care of myself.”

Mad gestured to the knives. “I don’t doubt it. I’m still not saying anything.”

“But I have so many questions.” Steph smiled. “Like, who are your guy’s hosts? And what five night’s musical?”

Mad almost lost his train of thought. Almost. 

Instead, he grunts. “You were listening in?”

“Of course.” Steph finished her drink. “I might know your counterpart, but I don’t know you nor Nate enough.” She shrugged. “I’m guessing your host is my Matthew, and Nate’s host is this world’s Nate, right?”

“The less you know the better.” Mad said again, glancing at Mare, urging him not to speak.

“Is my Matthew okay?” 

Mad suddenly had problems breathing.

He could feel the crippled mind in his head reaching out. Hopeing. Steph’s eyes were pleading for an answer that he couldn’t give. He knew Steph, he knew Stephanie. Stephanie knew about him too- treated him like another human being, because she trusted Mat. Steph trusted Matthew. A different Matthew. One he killed.

How would Stephanie feel about that?

His sanity slipped, if just a little bit.

He giggled.

“Secrets keep the world from exploding. Its all lies. The world’s goin either way.”

  
  
  


No matter how much Dark complained, he must admit, Anti had a plan.

Of course Anti had a plan. Not even a half assed plan, but a full blown plan, with backups and contendancies.

And for the most part, it was all him. Dark contributed whenever he caught the glitch mumbling the plan out loud, but it was mostly him.

And the voice in his head.

Maybe he didn’t crush that mind enough. It seemed thoroughly crushed, though. The mind seemed more focused on the gang threat then on Anti, so he supposed it had come to terms with what had happened to it. The mind didn’t even seem to angry with Anti, which was a plus. Maybe he would be nice when he crushed it, just because it hasn't caused any trouble. And it seemed to be talking to his host’s soul as well, keeping it busy.

That could cause problems in the future, but the mind was still mostly crazy, and his host didn’t really believe anything the mind said, so that solve those problems. Jack already knew about Anti crushing that mind and absorbing his soul thing. He knew that Anti had to do it, that the ego really didn’t have a choice.

He had, surprisingly, forgiven him. 

In the time it had taken him to come up with a fully fledged plan, Dark had gotten a call from Mad, explaining where they were, and a meet up point.

“We’re only one more teleport away from Baylif.” Dark said after he hung up. Going back to his book, he murmured. “You have five days before we leave.”

That was earlier this morning.

Plenty of time.

The hardest part was just finding where the Whitehead’s had set up in this town. The town wasn’t large by any standards, but it had industries, and it had warehouses. To many to count.

Anti either needed to be familiar with a place to teleport to it, or he needed to see it. Other then that, it was just him going in a certain direction and hopeing he gets close enough.

The good thing about Dark was that he always had such a big aura, that Anti can sense it no matter where he was, as long as they were in the same city. It made it easy for finding the ego.

So when he finally found the main warehouse this gang used, it was easy to find Dark, at a cafe downing a coffee.

“Want ta do some spyin wit me?” Was the first thing he said, uncaring about the waiter he had just startled. She wasn’t looking his way, but she had a moment before, and now she was staring wide eyed.

“She almost saw that.” Was all Dark said, taking another gulp of the scolding hot brew.

“Don’ care.” Anti replied. “Now, ye wanna go? They got a good amount o’ drugs on em.”

“Then call the police, Anti.” Dark said. “I do not care for this, at all.”

Anti pouted. “Suit yerself. Its a big place wit ah large smilin cartoon pig on it, incase ye change yer mind.”

Dark grunted.

Anti let a frown flicker on his face, before teleporting away. He landed in their dusty motel room, but the glitch barely noticed, instead grabbing some old clothes he stole from an abandoned gas station a few miles out. They probably had mold, but Anti had come to love his new clothes, and blood just did not come out.

After changing, he dropped his nice clothes on the bedspread and glitched away, appearing in front of the pig butchering warehouse. He wrinkled his nose- the smell of day old meat still lingered, under all of the Febreeze.

He had just checked the place a hour ago, and against the voice in his head, he didn’t check again. Didn’t really matter, they couldn’t kill him.

So he just broke open the locked doors and walked right in.

It took him a few minutes to get to the large room where most of the thugs (and drugs) were, there were several locked doors and a few men trying to stop him. One of them got out an alarm before he scooped out his eye, so he wasn’t surprised by the amount of guns pointed at him once he entered.

He hadn’t gotten a speck of blood on him yet, and he left his knife in the previous room. The thugs were probably very confused- since he strolled in with both hands in pockets and whistling.

Then he said something cheesy like ‘take me to your leaders’ and one of the men in the back almost screamed.

“He’s back!” The guy wailed, and Anti realized it was the thug he and Dark had met previously. “I told you, the toxic man!”

“Tha’s jus hurtful.” Anti frowned. Then, just to confirm him, he said. “I prefer septic.”

Another man came from a door up on the catwalk. “No killing, boys. Boss wants to see him alive.” He called.

Anti shrugged. “Bad choice, but okay.”

So the men hostlered their guns. Anti decided against summoning his knife to him, they thought he was agent Septic. They thought he was normal, and they were still scared. Anti grew some respect for the man, even if he was now just a mind.

But that meant he would have to beat all of these people to death.

Anti groaned at the thought. Taking so long just to get rid of lackeys? He needed a faster way.

That’s when the mind stepped in again. ~~Man to your left~~ .

**_Yeah, so?_ **

~~Charge him~~   Septic’s mind was very much crazed, but when it came to his job, the man gain such a clarity that even Mad would be surprised. Septic on a good day was better then Anti was on his best days.  ~~ His hands are shaking- he’s trigger happy, most likely. Charge him, he’ll go for his gun. Take it. ~~

Anti didn’t even hesitate.

~~Desert Eagle.~~ The mind said, as Anti moved to the side, startling not only his target but everyone else.  ~~Nine rounds, go for headshots. Drop the gun when you’re out- go for one someone dropped.~~

Anti hit the man in the gut, moving his head out of the way as the man went to shoot. Grabbing the gun before he could, he twisted the man’s wrist, bringing the man’s gun towards his head and firing.

He almost forgot about the safety. Knives don’t have safety, that’s absurd.

The man fell to the floor with a bullet hole in the side of the head. Anti looked down at the body, before glancing at himself, savoring the effect he had put on the room. He went to touch his hair, feeling his hand become wet with blood.

He brought the palm of his hand out to the others. “Yer friend got blood in ma’ hair. I expect compensation.

He brought the gun back up and fired 8 more times.

Each one hit their mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this website seems to be having problems with the crossed out words, so I had to go manually fix it and the grouping words when I highlighted them was bull as well so I’m sorry if there is any mishaps.  
> This isn’t good.  
> I have a lot more crossed out words in my later chapters...  
> ...Spoiler?


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When your memories aren’t actually yours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter, but be prepared for technical typos. I tried my best to fix them... but it’s annoying.
> 
> Warnings?  
> Emotions tied to a jetpack  
> Anti  
> Angst from main ego perspectives

They were moving to leave (they had at least a three days car trip ahead of them and they only had four days left) when there was a loud bang on the doors.

“Would the resident of this house please open the door?!” A masculine voice rumbled from the other side. “Your camera has malfunctioned, and it must be fixed immediately!”

“Bullshit.” Mad spun around to the windows, peeking through the blinds. “They’re here.”

Several Jeep’s were parked outside,  dozens of men in military uniform had formed a wall around the complex. He could see Google sitting in a car, unmistakable. He turned his head up towards the window, locking eyes with Mad. His mouth moved like he was talking.

“We know you’re in there! You have 10 seconds to open this door!”

Steph opened her bedroom door, stepping out. “What’s going o-“

The door, and the wall around it, blasted opened, sending debris all around. Mad saw a piece hit Mare’s arm, but paid barely any attention, since the force of the blast had knocked him into the window, slamming his head into the glass. It broke, and he subconsciously pulled out a sharp piece of glass that had stuck in his head, wincing slightly. He could feel the blood, leaking from his head, into his hair, down his neck. After making sure that his host’s soul was okay, he sighed. That would’ve been fatal if he was a regular human-

He froze, head jerking over to where Steph was standing.

Mat’s counterpart _screamed._

She was closer to the door when it happened, and she had been blown back to her own door. A piece of debris was stuck in her shoulder, and a jagged cut in her head told Mad she was either dead or close.

Suddenly, against his will, he was moving towards her. The mind this body originally had, in a time of insane emotion, had pushed him back, and he was too surprised to take back control.

He had just taken her pulse (weak but there) when Mare grabbed his shoulder. “ **_We need to go._ **”

Mad let him lead them towards the windows. A hole had blown through the wall, and they could see officers run into the apartment. The dust was clearing as well, they would enter in only a moment.

Mare spent no time jumping out of the apartment, landing two floors down on the street behind the officers. Mad followed, and they almost made it completely to the car when Google left his own car. “They are behind you.”

Several dozen guns turned on them.

Mad couldn’t concentrate. The counterpart was still screaming in his mind, bashing against his energy with whatever energy he had left. He was dangerously close to Mat’s soul, but for the life of Mad, he couldn’t focus. A barrage of _memories_ of Steph- her and Matthew growing up, fighting infected, the thought of a romance.

_~~I never got to say goodbye~~._ He could hear the crippled mind say, slamming himself into Mad’s own energy. The soul he had placed his energy around shivered, drawing in closer to himself.

The red flashing of an ambulance finally brought some clarity to his mind. Crippled as the mind was, he would know what that meant. Steph had a chance.

“Number 13.1 and Number 14.1, dubbed the Scientist and the Siren.” Google announced. “Surrender and come quietly, you are surrounded.”

Mare looked at Mad, who nodded slightly. Google seems to understand what he was going to do right before he did, and he turned to his men. “Put on your sou-“

His voice was drowned out by Mare’s soft but loud melody.

 

_Sleep now,_

_Waste this day away,_

_Sleep now,_

_and dreams are where you will_ **_stay_ **

 

By the time he had repeated the song twice, all of them men in range had fallen asleep. Mad checked once to make sure the ambulance men were still awake before turning to Google, who frowned at his predicament. “This was not recorded in your databases.”

Mare smirked. “I’m full of surprises.” He turned, running to the car. Google raised his arm, to probably stun them again, when Mad used his own power to stop him.

Google paused when his arm refused to move. He turned to look at Mad. “Your power does not work fully on me, Scientist.”

“It works enough.” Mad quipped, backing up towards the car himself. Google raised his other arm, and Mad started to sweat as he tried to keep both arms from raising. He was using both his telekinesis, and his control of technology, but the robot had some of Dark’s energy- he couldn’t be controlled completely.

Mare opened the passenger door, waiting for Mad to get in before closing it, turning the car on and slamming on the gas.

Mad didn’t let go of his hold on Google until they had passed town line. Swiping away sweat he leaned against the dashboard, trusting that Mare could go the right way with the help of a map and gps.

Matthew was still yelling in his head, albeit softer. His Matthew, Mat, couldn’t communicate without the help of the mind, and there was no way Mad was letting him near the crazed mind until he dealt with it. It was pretty easy to sense how he felt without it anyway, fear and curiosity being the top two.

Matthew had spent any energy he had beating against Mad’s own energy, so surrounding the small broken mind while keeping Mat shielded was easy. Without much trouble, he started crushing the mind again.

_~~is... she okay?~~  
_

Mad jolted slightly, a feeling settling in his stomach and a knot forming in his throat. They had taken this man’s body (they were put here without a choice but still) they had destroyed this man’s entire life, tore his soul and his most prized possession away from him. His mind and his free will.

With the memories that hit him, he knew that Matthew was going to try and go back and find her. He had found her in the databases, he was going to see her after his last mission.

**_She’ll be fine._ ** He lied slightly, because no one would be fine. **_She’s getting medical help._ **

And just like that, the mind stopped struggling. Mad crushed it just a little more, because he had to. His number one priority was the soul he protected, everything came second to that. He couldn’t risk leaving the mind just like it was just because it stopped fighting. If he wasn’t paying attention and Mat went close to it-

“She’s going to be okay.” Mare assured in the silence. “She’s not going to let some debris stop her, if she’s survived a zombie apocalypse.”

Mad wanted to smile, but a frown appeared either way. “The likelihood of survival is less than forty percent.”

“Nice stats, Google.” Mare joked to ease the heavy feeling. “And I was looking at some medical magazines while waiting at the car dealership- this dimension cured cancer fifty years ago. They are more than fifty years ahead of us in medical assistance. If you think she can make it using our technology, then she can definitely make it with their technology.”

This time, Mad really did smile. “Thanks for that.”

“No problem.”

The rest of the trip was quiet, Mare hummed a song and Mad took apart all the tablets they had and hacked into the laptop and phones.

But he had to force Steph out of his mind, creating a mental wall against her specifically. The distorted and agonizing wail he had heard from Matthew would send shivers down his spine for the rest of his life.

  
  


Anti was having fun.

He didn’t even have to worry about protecting his host’s soul. They couldn’t get close.

The crippled mind warned him before anything could happen.

The hundred or so men had been cut to half already. Several had ditched the ‘no killing’ order and had pulled out guns. That didn’t stop him either.

~~Man behind you.~~   ~~~~The man warned. ~~Two seconds to duck and knock him over.~~

Anti complied, sweeping the guy onto the floor while catching the gun he dropped, shooting him point blank as he fell. Brain matter almost exploded from the wound, and Anti spit out some blood that landed on his lips. Regular human blood was nasty.

He let off two more rounds, each landing on someone on the catwalk above, before diving behind a garbage bin.

“Surround him!” He heard.

He snickered, glitching over to another corner. Crouching down, he snuck over to two corpses, picking up the two handguns with each hand.

He played with them for a moment, feeling their weight. He preferred knives over guns, but he could appreciate a good gun as well. He had to admit, the thugs took good care of their guns.

Pointing them at different heads, he fired until they were empty.

That still left around twenty left, and they had all aimed their guns towards him. Fuck.

Guess it was time to get out the knife.

~~Stop.~~ The mind aside.  ~~Let them take you to their boss.~~

**_Pretty sure they’re going to shoot me instead._ ** Anti replied.

He made sure his energy blocked Jack from asking what he meant by that. He also made sure that Jack couldn’t hear the crippled mind. The less questions, the better.

“Hands on your head!” One man barked. “Turn around, face the wall!”

Anti pouted, but listened either way. He still hadn’t gotten his fill of blood, but he could kill these guys _afterwards,_ either way.

He waited for one of them to come and grab his arms. Or something.

They never did.

When he turned around, they were all dead. Some split in half, some decapitated, some with just plain holes in their chests.

Anti stared for a moment, before looking down. His beloved knife and another gun sat by his feet.

He grinned. He should’ve known.

It took only a few moments to locate the still living men in the warehouse. There were several bodyguards blocking a door, way more than he expected.

It made him wonder, agent Septic had basically destroyed the Whiteheads. Was this the last boss left? The would make some sense, as to why he had so much security. Seriously, the amount of bodyguards was overkill.

They were even decently trained. One got him in a choke hold before he plunged his knife into their gut.

Once he was free, he sneered, holding his throat. “That seriously hurt!” He stabbed the dying man again. Then again. After making sure the man was completely dead, he stopped. “Tha’s what ye get.”

He looked around. The others had died a lot quicker then the one choking him. He sighed, shaking his head. They just don’t make deadly people like they use to.

He promptly turned, pushing open the large doors. “Ello!”

The man on the other side was extremely large. He looked like a cartoon mafia boss, basically a rectangle on it’s side with a head glued on top. But it was just as much muscle as it was fat, which was confusing in it’s own right.

Septic recognized him.

“Fookin Reily?” Anti laughed. “Yer ta new boss? Ye were jus a lil lowlife las’ I saw ye!”

“The infamous Agent Septic.” Reily sneered. “Feeling nostalgic? Or just suicidal?”

~~I thought I could just visit, see how everything’s going. From the looks of it, you’re a few months away from collapse.~~

Anti, without even thinking, relayed the words the crippled mind said as if they were his own.

Several guns became trained on him. “I sent several men out to end your life, but they all came back saying you were already dead.” Reily reported. “You fake your own death? Why, to hide from us?”

~~Don’t be an~~ idiot. Septic laughed, his voice cracking with insanity.  ~~Why would I hide from you pathetic worms?~~

Reily sneered as Anti repeated what he heard, before nodding. “End him.”

Anti just raised his arms, as if welcoming it. The bodyguard behind Reily raised his gun, pointing it towards the glitch’s head.

Never mind.

As the man pulled the trigger, Anti glitched away, appearing behind the guard and slitting his throat. Reily jumped in surprise as a shower of blood fell on him. Anti aimed his gun at the boss as the two other guards aimed at him themselves.

“Shoot me as much as ye want.” Anti smirked. “But every shot you take at me, every bullet I put in yer boss’s dick.”

~~Disgusting~~.

**_Shut up I’m havin fun_ ** **.**

Reily gaped. “Wha-What…”

Anti looked down at the boss. He remembered seeing Reily as a lanky teenager, smuggling drugs into the city, where the main part of the Whiteheads were. He- no, Septic didn’t kill him (he was a teenager for Christ sakes-) then, but now, he was a boss in a gang, albeit a small one, but he was selling drugs and the Whiteheads were known for their brutality and Septic would not have that.

So instead of having his fun, he just stabbed the boss in the neck, teleporting behind one of the guards and shooting him, before using the dead man as a shield and killing the other.

He frowned once he was done, before speaking aloud. “Come on, yer morals got in ta way of my good time.”

Septic’s mind snorted.  ~~Just keep lying to yourself.~~

“What do you mean?” Anti furrowed his eyebrows. “I’m not lyin.”

~~I haven’t had clarity in months. I only just got it, after you decided to go after this gang. Those aren’t my morals, this was what you wanted.~~

Anti crosses his arms. “They were yer memories.”

~~They are. Septic agreed. But it was your decision, Anti. I have no choice in what you do, I can already feel my mind start to cloud. I only came back because this was so personal to me.~~

Anti frowned. “Tha’ makes no sense. Ye know I’m goin to crush ye, right?”

~~I knew from the moment I started helping you that you would at the end of this. Septic admitted. But helping you destroy the last of the Whiteheads is more important. I’m already dead, my soul is already gone, you can do your worst.~~

 For one of the first times, Anti had mixed feelings. “Dude, ye know I had no choice in tis.”

~~That’s why I’m not trying to take back control. Septic said, sounding slightly unstable. I get that. Just watch out… because I don’t think the others have forgiven your friends so easily as I have.~~

Then, the mind was gone. Either he had stopped speaking, or lunacy had overtaken him again. Anti groaned, pushing Reily off of the desk he fell limp on and taking the spot himself.

A stray memory floated into his mind. It was Septic’s, he knew, but he still examined it.

It was the agent, before all of this had happened. He was sitting on agent Warf’s desk, banting with the other man. Agent Song was watching with amusement on his face. The two were fake arguing, because they had both tied in their guess of when these two other agents would get together. The prize was a jetpack the Theorist was making. Septic had won in the end, and he was still waiting for the jetpack.

He didn’t know why the memory made him smile. Maybe it was just the fact that the four agents in the memory were so happy, or maybe because the memory was so clear, when every other memory of Septic’s was blurry.

It hit him then that Septic had purposely showed him that memory. The mind probably held it at the forefront of his mind when they were first injected with the ego’s energy. Septic held onto it. It gave him clarity, through the pain and sorrow of losing his soul.

During the torture he was put through, he still waited for that jetpack.

And now, he had let it go.

Anti teleported to the motel, leaving the mind as it was. He didn’t feel like destroying it anymore than it already had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay the technical problems are still messin with me and I’m now annoyed. Group selecting is broken and the crossed out words have turned into annoying messes.


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the road again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...

They drove for a full day, only stopping twice for fuel. Mad didn’t talk once, which left Mare with only the music from the radio and his own thoughts.

  
  


Anti arrived at the motel late in the night. Dark watched as he picked up his good clothes and went silently into the bathroom to shower.

  
  


Mad fell asleep at one point, which surprised Mare. When he woke up, his eyes were pitch black and glazed with tears. 

Mare didn’t ask. He already knew.

  
  


Anti thanked him once he came out of the shower. “What is this for?” Dark was genuinely surprised, the glitch never gave gratitude.

“You know why.” He said in response. And Dark did know.

  
  


Mare finally lost patience at the end of the second day. “Come’on man, talk to me. It feels like I’m taking a road trip by myself.”

Mad arched an eyebrow, before cracking a smile. “You miss talking to me so much?”

Mare grinned. “Sometimes, I really do.”

  
  


Anti, as always, teleported them the first way there, and Dark did the rest, as well as finding them somewhere to sleep. Baylif was a large city, and Dark wanted to stay in a penthouse for the amount of time they were there.

“You never did tell me how your escapade went.” Dark said once they were both awake.

Anti snorted. “Like ye don’t already know. I thanked ye, didn’t I?”

  
  


Mad had taken the wheel, since Mare didn’t want to drive anymore. It took only a few moments before they were on some out of the way back road. Mare arched an eyebrow at the other ego.

Mad shrugged. “Faster way past the border. We’re in France right now, at least.”

Mare nodded. “One more country over?”

“Correct. Another day or so.”

Mare couldn’t wait.

  
  


There wasn’t much to do besides wait for the other two. Anti went around the slums of Baylif, getting rid of other killers and men with bad felonies. Dark stayed in his room, trying to figure out where his migraine had come from.

He couldn’t.

  
  


They arrived at the next border early in the morning, before the sun had risen. The people checking things were tired, and Mare barely had to use his powers to get pass them.

Once he was done, Mad pointed out a missing person poster behind him, with a drawing of Dark, except for the facial features and hair difference.

Mare, having no comment, just shrugged.

  
  


Dark was so caught up in his own headache that he never realized that other people were in the house.

Anti glitched up next to him in the kitchen. “Ye know, there were two people fooking on the other side of tis apartment when I got back. Ye never even seemed to realize tey were here.” He twirled his knife, which was fresh with blood.

Dark looked up, and suddenly, his migraine had vanished. “I was focused on more important things.”

Anti snorted at the excuse.

  
  


Nearly three days after they left, they arrived in the big city of Baylif. Mad asked Mare to call Dark for him, but Mare never did.

“You can sense them.” He said instead. “Let’s greet them like normal people.”

  
  


Anti was thoroughly surprised when the doorbell rang. Grunting, he got up, moving over to the door and opening it without checking.

Mad stood in front of the door with a large grin, while Mare leaned against the opposite hallway.

“Season’s Greetings.” Was Mad’s greeting.

  
  
  
  


“Tell me what you know about Google.”

Mad forced himself to stay calm, spinning around childishly and placing his hands on the counter. “There isn’t much to know about him.”

Dark narrowed his eyes slightly. “Mad.”

“He acts the same exact way that he acts in Mark’s videos, just less destroy mankind-y.” Mad held up his hands in mock surrender. “He takes your preferences into consideration and is trigger happy when it comes to neutralizing things.”

“Neutralizing.” Dark murmured. “What he did to Mare?”

Mad nodded, somewhat rigidly. Something in the man’s eyes told him what he needed to know about that as well.

He straightened his suit instinctively, before switching subjects. “And what have you learned of the others in charge of our project?”

“Many of the handlers that took our energy from our original bodies died while doing so.” Mad started. “And the others were killed afterwards, to hide any evidence of tampering with the vortex. Theo was the one who proposed the project, and the one who carried it out was Harper.”

Dark nodded. “The government worker.”

“Yep.”

He was the guy who first brought up the idea to the agents, before sending them on a fake mission to declare their deaths. He had watched over their progress from the beginning.

He had died when they first escaped- Dark made sure of that.

“The rest are more so lackeys.” Mad finished. “Just normal everyday agents and scientists. If Harper didn’t organize this entire thing from the beginning, then Theo’s idea would’ve never worked, and this project would never had existed.”

Dark wished he spent more time killing the man then he did.

Instead, he just sighed. “Your food is burning.”

Mad yelped, turning back around and mixing the food on the pan again. He had been getting a craving a couple days ago, but this was the first day he was actually hungry.

“You want some?” Mad asked as he turned the stove off, going for some kind of casual conversation. “Surprisingly, there wasn’t much food in the pantry, so I just made some stir fry.”

Dark accepted the offer. He’s been going on coffee for a while now. The last thing he ate was eggs almost a week ago, he could go for some food.

The migraine came back. Dark frowned.

Mad took his own plate and sat it opposite of Dark’s on the counter. After a moment, he mimicked his frown. “What’s got you upset?”

If there was anyone who would understand why his head hurt, it would be Mad. “Migraine.” He said, and Mad looked up quizzically. “It’s been on and off for the better part of two days.”

“Your head… hurts.” Mad said blandly.

“Yes.”

“Like, actually hurts?”

“Yes.”

“Like, you can actually feel pain-“

“Yes, Mad.” Dark almost growled. “And no, I don’t know what’s causing it.”

Mad was silent for a moment, before examining him like he was a class hamster. He pretended not to notice, looking seemingly unbothered as he ate.

“Maybe you have too much energy in your head.” Mad suggested, and Dark remembered what Mark said about it being to crowded. “It could be pushing on your body’s skull, and you just wouldn’t notice because every time it went to far your energy would heal it. You’d be using your powers nonstop, and that can have any side effect it wants to have.”

Dark nodded, taking a chunk of energy and pushing it down towards his heart. It did help somewhat, the migraine chilled and he felt relief that he didn’t even know he needed. “I appreciate the help.”

“Just say thank you, it’s not that hard.” Mad murmured, before looking him over again. “It was no problem.”

  
  


Mare appeared from wherever he had gone only a few minutes afterwards, stealing the rest of the food and sitting at the couch. Anti showed up only a few minutes after that.

The glitch took off his parka, which shined with blood. “I should work with ta law.” He grinned. “I’m cleanin up these streets better than tey are!”

He promptly threw the parka in the trash, placing his knife on the counter. He hadn’t ruined his clothes at all, and he looked like a regular member of society once the coat was off.

“It’s a whole new you.” Mare started to tease. “Getting rid of gangs, taking murderers off the streets. You’ll get a medal soon.”

Anti flipped him off with a grin.

And, for a moment, it was like nothing had ever happened. It was like they were just friends, chatting and laughing at each other.

The thought brought Mad some type of happiness as he took Mare’s and Dark’s empty dish, dumping it in the sink with his own. He let the bliss overtake him as he went to lie on one of the three couches in the living room.

But then the moment was over, as quickly as it came.

“Dark?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hue  
> Hue  
> Hue


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the problem is inside, instead of out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I regret every single line of crossed out text I wrote. The fact that this thing is still having this problem annoys me to no end.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Mind Fuckery  
> Soul Fuckery  
> Fuckery in general for the Ipliers

Dark first felt it like a punch in the gut.

He gasped quite loudly, clutching his stomach and taking a knee on the ground, holding onto the counter. Anti’s head snapped over, a frown quickly taking over his face. “Dark?”

_Something… something’s wrong._ Mark muttered, and he sounded sick and distorted. Dark’s migraine flared, harder and larger then it had even been before, and he saw stars.

“What’s wrong?” He heard Mad speak from outside his vision, and he went to raise his hand to wave Anti away, but he lost his grip on the counter and fell. Anti crouched down to catch him, carrying him over into Mad’s and Mare’s sight of vision.

“I dunno!” Anti’s voice screeched into a glitch, eyes panicking. “He jus fell!”

**_What’s wrong?_ ** Dark felt around for Mark’s soul, when he shuttered. _Where was Mark’s soul?_

He could distantly tell that Mad was examining him, opening his eyes wider. “His eyes are black. Something is irritating him.” He stood up, crossing his arms. “Since it’s only bothering him, it must of been something that happened while we weren’t here, or it’s something inside-“ Mad’s eyes widened. “Dark, does this have to do with your migraine? Is there something wrong with Mark’s soul?”

He wanted to answer, but he felt paralyzed. He couldn’t feel his host’s soul anymore, and that was the scariest feeling he ever had. If it was gone, he wouldn’t be here anymore, he’d be dead right now, so it was just hidden but how was it hidden Mark couldn’t of done that what he didn’t know-

Dark’s body started twitching, and he saw Anti move to keep him from thrashing. “Wh̸̻͇̒́ḁ̵͌̔t̸̯̼͉͒ ta fook?!” He glitched. “Is that w̴͓͙̽h̸̻͇̒́ḁ̵͌̔t̸̯̼͉͒’s wrong?! Answer damnit!”

Dark stilled, and his eyes shut without his permission.

And suddenly, he was completely within the mindscape.

~~_fInALly_ ~~! A new voice said.

Dark looked around, staying as a shadow. That wasn’t Mark’s voice. **_Who are you? Get out of here NOW!_ **

_~~MMmmMm~~ … ~~nO~~ _!

He distantly felt blood leaking from his lips in the real world, a few moments before he felt it, like something was squeezing his heart in their hands. It only took him a moment to put it together. **_Where’s Mark?_ **

~~_rIghT HErE! ME! iM MaRk! aT leAsT, i WAS._ ~~

Dark could see it now, the mind he had crippled from before, still broken and fractured, but now it was glowing brightly, like a _soul_ did.

Inside the mass of the mind, he could see Mark’s soul. He growled. **_Let him go this instant, or I will_ _torture_ _you within an inch of your pathetic life._ **

Mark’s soul couldn’t talk without using the mind, but Dark could tell he was trying to give some sort of assurance. He rolled his eyes at the soul.

~~_yOu wOUld Do tHAt EitHEr WaY. yOu ALREADY haVe! nOW, LeT’s HaVe a convERsatIon LiKe GEntleMen HERe!_ ~~

He distantly heard the other egos freaking out, but he could do nothing for it. Frowning, he transformed into his human form, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

The other man turned into Mark’s counterpart, but the image buzzed, barely held together. It still glowed bright with Mark’s soul, which he now held in his hand. He was only coherent because of Mark’s soul. He was broken because his own soul was completely gone. He wasn’t unhinged like Mare and Mad, he was _crazy_.

_ThERe wE gO._ The man spoke _. I havE beTTeR_ ~~_conversations_ ~~ _LiKe tHiS ANYwaY_.

**_Now that you’ve shown yourself and gotten my attention._ ** Dark held out his hand, his energy surrounding them all around. **_Give me back the soul._ **

The man tutted, squeezing the soul slightly. Dark immediately coughed, blood exiting his mouth. The man was hitting the soul in just the right area, to be causing this much damage. _You_ _dOn’T cOnTRol ThIs bODY anYmORe, DaRKiE. IvE BeEn aBsORbINg YouR eXtRA eNERgy fOR_ _~~months~~ now! _ _As LOnG aS I HoLD tHiS sOUl, I cONTROL thIS BODY!_

Dark’s body jolted forward, and his eyes opened with a gasp. Anti jumped a foot back as Dark breathed heavily, coughing and wiping the blood from his lips. “Holy shite Dark! Scared ta livin crap outta us!”

His body turned towards the other egos, and Mad frowned, putting a hand on Anti’s shoulder as some form of calming. “Dark, is your host’s soul safe?”

“Completely utterly safe Maddy.”

The three frowned, and Mare stood up from his seat at the end of the couch they had placed Dark on. He frowned. “Dark?”

“He clocked out, I’m here now.” Dark’s body grinned.

Anti’s eyes widened, “Mark? Seriously? How are ye talkin and movin without yer mind?”

“I haven’t heard my birth name in so long.” His body stood up and stretched. “You're talking about the other Mark, probably. No, that’s going to get complicated real fast, and I haven’t had my coffee for today yet. No, call me Warfstache.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me if the songs Mare sings are ones I created or just something I found. All of the singing Mare does will be songs I have made. If he does sing a song that I didn’t make, I’ll say so either now in the chapter or in the chapter notes. But the sleep song he sang a few chapters back was something I made.


	16. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teamwork makes the dream work! And, you know, shoving your aura down someone’s throat as well. That works too...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those I had written a while ago so let’s hope I didn’t mess anything plot related up.
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Warf (he’s his own warning, too)  
> Anti
> 
> BiZaRePistachio-  
> Thank you for commenting what you did. I just wanted to say that all agents have indeed been seen. To find Song... just read back the simulation scene with Mare. Again, thank you!

Anti was impressed with how fast Mad jumped the guy, pinning Warf’s arms behind him with telekinesis. “We need to tie this guy down!”

Mare scrambled away to get some rope or anything. Anti made to move forward, when Warf laughed, hand slowly moving despite Mad’s powers. He had access to Dark’s powers, then.

Suddenly, a dark knife appeared in Warf’s hand, something that smoked and moved as if made of shadow. He threw it straight into Mad’s gut, giggling in delight when Mad took a few steps back in surprise, cutting off his powers as he went to remove the knife.

Instantly, Warf jumped up, hands now holding two shadow guns, pointed straight towards the two’s respective head.

Anti laughed. “Like that’ll work.”

Warf giggled. “It won’t kill you, but I know you keep your host’s souls up there. I wonder if it’ll tickle~”

Anti scoffed at the idea, looking at Mad to contradict him. He didn’t.

“Warfstache.” Mad said instead. “You’re Mark’s counterpart, but you’re also an ego. Which one are you?”

“Both!” Warf’s hands pointed to the ceiling, and Anti twitched forward, but the gun was back to him before he could move anymore. He had forgotten, Agent Warf was a top notch government spy. Warf spoke softly, all maniacal voice gone. “Dark killed my soul. Dark crippled my mind, let my counterpart use it to talk to him. He didn’t know, his soul slowly healed my mind, if only slightly, and Dark’s energy with Mark’s thoughts- well, Wilford wanted in on the action as well. I don’t think this is exactly what he wanted, but oh well!”

“That doesn’t explain how you’re out here.” Mad injected. “What did you do with Mark’s soul?”

“It’s safe!” He giggled. “I’m just holding onto it, for safekeeping! Now, I must be going, move away from the door.”

Anti, instead, stepped in front, summoning his knife. “Like hell I’ll let you jus walk out of here!”

Warf stopped giggling, a bored expression washing over his face in a flash. “Okay, I’m done with this already.” He moved his gun back over to Anti’s forehead, finger twitching on the trigger.

 

_Something’s been stolen,_

_Something’s being used,_

_By someone not to woven,_

_By someone too amused,_

 

Warf froze as a soft song started to sound through the halls. Mad smirked slightly as Anti grinned. He wasn’t immune to their powers, like Dark himself was.

 

_Use not another’s tool,_

_Death for the mind,_

_If you choose to be a fool_

 

Mare stepped out from the room he was just in, finishing his song, holding zip ties as Warf’s guns dissolved before him. He stared at his empty hands as Mare moved forward, grabbing one of his wrists to place the tie.

Warf snapped out of it immediately, grabbing a knife from the counter ( _Anti’s_ knife the fucker-) and slamming Mare against the wall, hand over his mouth. Anti glitched to Warf’s side as he rammed the knife into Mare’s head, gaining a startled gasp from the ego as he slid to the floor.

Mad ran over to Mare as Anti grabbed Warf by the neck, easily pulling him off the ground. Warf choked. “Careful there, Anti dear! Dark’s still in here! And I don’t have the kind of shield that you egos have! He feels everything happening as if he was human!”

Anti slammed him on the ground in rage. “D̷̠̃̉I̸̞͆̆́D̸̼̗̐ ̷̧̇̊̉Y̶͙͆O̶̤͔̖̒̒U̷̟͊̔̕ ̴̢̈́̚T̵̠͝H̸̥̖͍͐́͂I̷͚͑̓N̸̗͉̂͋K̸̢̩̞͂̑ ̵̛̰͗̕ͅW̷̨̲͒͑E̷͇̔ ̷̨̈́W̷̫̅͂̈Ô̷̮̩Ű̶̯̹͜L̷̖̘͊̐́D̷̘̈́̊̈́ ̶̥̍̾͝J̵̱̽͘ͅU̵͇̼̓̓̄S̸͗͜ ̴̙͖̿̓Ļ̸̱́̌̾E̸̛̫̕T̵̒̉͜ ̴̰̩́͐͗Y̸̮̐͠Ạ̸̰͙́̀͘ ̷̣͕̄W̴̼̫͉̑̈́̾A̷̜̙̚͘͝L̵̮̻͛̏K̵͔͓͉̓ ̴͔͚̀̈́̈́͜O̵͚͈̓͊̓Ų̸̭͌̅͐T̶̠̎̆̏ ̵̣̃͒ͅÖ̷̳́̏̚F̷͖̒̍́ ̸̝̭͒͛‘̶̗̙͇̇E̴̖͆̈́́R̷̆͐́͜E̵̳͕̿͘̕ ̶̢͓̐I̵̖̪̘͠N̷̝̭͋ ̴̖̎͜D̴̺̥̖͛̾̚A̸̻͙͓͑̐̏Ŕ̵͇͘̕K̷͓͛́’̸̥͕̽͜S̸̝̉̀́ͅ ̸͕̻̈́́͝B̶͓͉̈͝O̷̡̊̍͝D̴̳̫́́̈́Ȳ̶̧̫̿?̶̝̝̎!̵̱͐̀”

“Am I supposed to think that you guys actually care for each other? That you’re not just using each other to reach a goal?” Warf growled. “I’ve seen Mark’s memories of you all, and how you act in videos!”

Anti paused for a moment, before laughing. “Heh, **_you’re so clueless_ ** .” The glitch leaned in, whispering so Mad wouldn’t hear. “ **Caring and being** _possessive are two_ **very** _different things._ ”

He took the zip ties, tying his hands behind him before grabbing Warf’s collar and pulling it up. “You have five minutes to give Dark that body back.”

Slamming the man back on the ground, he got up, moving over to the others. Mare was out, a large hole in his head. Mad crouched next to the singer, not looking at Anti as he came near. “Warf should be unable to use Dark’s powers now without dying. He won’t be a problem for us anymore in that aspect.”

“He’s still a high tier spy.” Anti spat, not at Mad, but at the guy behind him. “And he knows where we keep our host’s souls, _exactly_ where we keep them.”

Mad exhaled, looking back at Mare. “Went right through the skull, should’ve split Nate’s soul right in half. Mare would’ve been out for a week healing it. He protected him just in time.”

Anti groaned. “These souls are so annoying!”

_Hey!_

Anti almost jumped from the voice that appeared in his head. **_Sean?_ **

_That’s Jack to you, mister._ Jack grumbled. _What’s going on, you seem really… tense._

 **_Stop using the mind to communicate with me._ ** Anti said shortly. **_It’s dangerous._ **

He felt Jack’s soul grumble. _But I’m boooooored._

**_You would rather put us in danger then be bored?_ **

Jack was silent for a moment. _But I’m booooooored._

Anti groaned out loud, gaining a look from Mad, which he simply pointed at his own head to explain. He wasn’t to worried about Septic, but now that he knew it could happen, no matter what the mind did last time they spoke, he was paranoid. **_I’ll let you watch more when everything’s fine if you shut up_ ** **_right now._ **

No response. Anti smiled. Good.

Mad just nodded when he finally looked back at him. “I’ve already informed Matthew not to use the mind to speak, unless it was necessary. Mark must’ve been talking a lot to Dark while we were in captivity if Warf was strong enough to take control.”

“Mark and Dark had a better and longer relationship to start off with then any of us.” Anti said to explain. “Dark told me that when he appeared, Mark actually _helped_ him take a solid form. Jack helped me accidentally.”

“Matthew helped me on his own, but the fans didn’t as much so.” Mad explained, taking a look at Mare’s head again, bringing a roll of paper towels over to dab up the blood. He moved it away when the dark tendrils started to grow around the wound. “He thought it interesting that something so flimsy as belief could bring something to life by itself.”

It was quiet for a moment, before Warf laughed loudly. Anti scowled, getting up to kick Warf as he passed. “What are you so giddy bout?!”

Warf waited till he could see Mad walk over before speaking. “The fact that you think I’ll just go back! I hold Mark’s soul! I can crush it and kill them both instantly!”

“That’s suicide for you.” Mad pointed out, “Without a soul you wouldn’t survive either.”

“ _Life_ is for the _living_.” Warf grinned, as if he had an inside joke. “I'm no longer living. I’d rather lose it all then give someone else my body. It’s all I have left! I’ll die once they leave my body anyways! If Marey hadn’t used his voice, I could’ve left and lived the rest of my life in peace.”

Anti growled, realizing what he meant. No matter what happened, he was going to kill Dark and Mark. He grabbed Warf’s head, expanding his aura, which turned into sharp sickles. Mad backed up, out of the way.

“Didn’ want ta have ta do this-“ he drove his aura through Warf’s head.

Suddenly, he was _in_ Warf’s head. It was pitch black, the walls crawled with shadows. Dark stood, watching Warf with a pained frown as he held the soul in his hands tighter and tighter.

It _lOoKs lIkE we’RE boTH gOiNG oUT NoW._ Warf was saying.

 _As if._ Dark scoffed, bloody lipped. He was scowling, but there was a speck of fear in his eyes. **_Not only did you hurt Mark, but you took Wilford away. Do you know how long that will take to REPAIR?!_**

Wasting no time, Anti summoned his knife, stabbing Warf’s arm and grabbing the back of his neck, throwing him into the wall of shadows while catching Mark’s soul.

**_Anti?_ **

He turned to look at Dark. Smiling at Dark’s surprised look, he moved to hand back Mark’s hurt soul to him. It brightened considerably when Dark took it. “Take better care of tis, Dark. We’d rather not lose you.”

He removed his aura from Dark, blinking his eyes back to blue and taking a step back from Dark’s prone form.

“He’s okay?” Mad asked.

“Fine.” Anti said. “He’ll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So basically, Warf is the agent, and he was crippled, but because Mark was always talking to Dark more then the others were talking to their hosts, and since Dark has some of the most energy out of all of them, Warf’s mind healed by using Mark’s soul in substitute for Warf’s soul. After that, he slowly started taking Dark’s energy, and when he finally started taking to much, Dark got a headache. Then, he basically took Mark’s soul when he wasn’t paying attention, because Mark is always by the crippled mind as well.
> 
> Wilford is a part of Dark’s energy, and since Warf was taking some of it, and he was most closely like Wilford then any of the other egos in dark’s energy, he took most of Wilford-like energy, kind of merging them together. Wilford allowed it cause he just wanted to do something, and when he realized how bad of an idea it was, it was already to late.
> 
> Hope that clears that up!  
> And I know all these side adventures are short and only two or three chapters a piece, but I’m doing that on purpose.
> 
> Next chapter is a special! Be out in a bit!


	17. Extra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a prologue to every story, an origin to every character, and a person who built every building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE I DON'T EVEN SHIP- I don’t even ship Dark and Wilford (Wilford Warfstache and not agent Warf) And it’s not shipped in here BUT it’s good father figure stuff and now Wilford is the my favorite right now and I’m in love with this chapter!!  
> And damn this thing is looong. 6k words! This is the longest chapter I’ve ever written for any of my stories! And I wrote this all in one go! You guys should know I’ve already written up to chapter 20 in this, and I wanted to add in an extra, so I literally just wrote this and stuffed it in.  
> I LOVE THIS CHAPTER SO MUCH.

_ Waking up was a strange thing the first time he experienced it. It wasn’t so much as waking up as it was being created. _

_ It was dark, dark and silent and it was terrifying. _

_ It didn’t last for long. _

_ Moments after he first held lucidity, thoughts and memories filled his head. He was told they were his own, but he never remembered experiencing them. And it wasn’t… the same person living them. _

_ One of his memories was of a man with a pink mustache and a shooting fetish. That man put condoms on the barrels of guns to protect himself, ran weirdly, and was a player in every sense of the word. _

_ Then there was another, a robot with the world in his mind. Even with his incredible intelligence, he was bound to the words of his master, and couldn’t do anything besides what was asked of him. And the time he finally tricked the man, the man tricked him right back. _

_ There was a few others, as well. A doctor who found amusement in despair, an author that could write reality, a king among rodents… _

_ But one stood out to him. _

_ There was only a choice few memories about him, but he clung to them like a lifeline. The memories were short, curt, and hard to decipher. A single angry glance, cold stares in the darkness, silence broken by nothing. _

_ Darkness…. Dark… that was the memories of that one man, that was his name. _

_ Dark. _

_ He clung to the name, and the memories and voices around him seemed to organize, if only a little bit. Over time, he came to recognize the different voices, who they were and how they differentiated from the rest. They were all the men from the memories he saw. _

_ They were different. _

_ But they weren’t. _

_ They were one whole. _

_ And that cause anger. They all claimed superiority when they didn’t have it. They fought with each other, trying to destroy their memories or take them for themselves. They didn’t feel pain. _

_ But Dark could feel it. Only Dark. And he couldn’t stop it. He was barely a complete thought- the others ignored him for the most part. He didn’t have a full story, only a few glances that hinted at something dark and foreboding. The only one who ever listened was Wilford. _

_ He doesn’t remember the exact day it happened, because it was always dark and there was no sun or moon to tell time. But one day, he felt something different. _

_ ‘It’s our host.’ Wilford explained when he asked. ‘He created us. We live inside of him.’ Then he leaned in close and said. ‘No one else can feel his soul though, I was the only one before. You say you felt him?’ _

_ ‘I felt a calmness wash over me.’ Was Dark’s reply, and Wilford grinned. _

_ ‘That was him going to sleep.’ Wilford tapped his nose. ‘Don’t tell the others just yet, ya hear? They’ll rip you apart, they’ll try and find out how you feel ‘em.’ _

_ ‘But you feel him and you don’t have to worry.’ Dark said, confused. ‘Why should I, they don’t care about me.’  _

_ Wilford pokes his chest, which is surprising in itself. Everyone has a form, all similar but all slightly different. They all have a form, besides him. He’s so small and so unknown that he’s just a mass of darkness. For Wilford to know exactly what was what in that was something only Wilford could do. ‘Because you're different. They don’t know it yet, but you are, even more than me. You feel pain and you have a form, even after only two short showings. You’ve been out for only thirty seconds total, but you are still here, here within the mass that is us. You can think and feel, feel pain and our host. If everyone else knew that, you’d lose it all.’ _

_ Then, Wilford grinned, as if that had never happened, before going to talk about the first wife he stole from a man. _

_ After that, Dark became much more in tuned to what was happening with their host. He couldn’t really get away from the others, they were stuck in a room that seemed to never end But was still very small. He could see everyone at anytime, which was one of the reasons why there was so many fights. _

_ He knew exactly when their host started to drift, exactly when he fell asleep too. The others would calm then, something no one else seemed to realize. It was when they all would wander aimlessly, and that’s when Wilford, still as lucid as ever, would separate them, subtly pushing them away from Dark, who would settle in a corner until their host awoke again. _

_ He was watching Wilford do what he usually did, when he felt something pull at his being. Something that seemed to stink of fear. _

_ Frowning, he turned, unsurprised at the doorway that had appeared behind him. Without thinking, he went down the path shown to him. _

_ When he reached the end, he had to shield his eyes against the brightness that had engulfed the room and himself. The light, though, didn’t hurt his dark body, like he thought it would. It was warm and friendly, and he had the most acute sense of protectiveness. _

_ He doesn’t know what made him walk up to it. To touch it. _

_ Suddenly, he was pulled into a dream. He knew what that was, he had access to most of his host’s knowledge. Wilford did, too. The others, not as much. _

_ It was dark, and slightly blue. A man that looked so much like the others he knew but much more original was thrashing about, hands flailing, like he was trying to swim. _

_ It took a moment for Dark to realize what was happening. His host was having a nightmare. About drowning. _

_ He doesn’t understand exactly how he changed the dream, how, instead, he created a grassy meadow for them to stand on. He did, though, and he had to smile when a look of relief crossed his host’s face. _

_ ‘Are you okay?’ Dark asked, and his host jumped, scared of his shadowy being. _

_ “Uh, yeah.” His host gulped. “Great, fuckin fantastic… wait, am I dreaming?” He looked down at himself, realizing he was completely dry. _

_ ‘You are.’ Dark confirmed, trying his best not to seem curious or wary. _

_ His host breathed out a sigh of relief. “God damn Subnautica…” he murmured. “I’m surprisingly lucid for a dream, for my dream to tell me I’m dreaming.” _

_ ‘I’m not a part of this dream.’ Dark corrected him.  _

_ His host looked skeptical. “Sure you’re not. What are you, then?” _

_ Dark blinked. ‘I… I don’t know…’ _

_ His host’s eyes seemed to soften, as if just realizing something. He seemed to panic. “Okay, okay, that’s fine, then. If you don’t know, let’s start with introductions. I’m Mark.” _

_ It was silent for a moment. ‘And I Dark.’  _

_ Mark raised an eyebrow. “Dark, as in, the fanmade Dark? Really? I would’ve believed Wilford more then Darkiplier.” _

_ The name Darkiplier seemed to resonate with him, but he said nothing about it. ‘I assure you, I am Dark. I don’t know what Dark means to you, but to me it is only the name I was given. I am nothing but a name.’ _

_ “What do you mean?” Mark asked. _

_ Instead of answering, Dark held out a shadow, trying to make it look like a hand. Mark, slowly, reached out, grabbing it. _

_ Instantly, the man locked up, almost jerking away as he looked into Dark’s being, seeing the chaotic thoughts and emotions that made him up. He was nothing but thoughts and emotions and memories and… belief. Wherever the belief had come from, he doesn’t know, but it was there. _

_ When he was finished, Dark let go. Mark clutched the hand like it was hurt, looking far more concerned then Dark thought he would be. “All of the… the egos I’ve created… they’re real? They’re living inside me?” _

_ Dark only nodded. _

_ That’s when Mark went off on a torrent. “How is that possible? Everything was just for fun, I was just acting things out for my friends and fans! And how are you here? Darkiplier isn’t even something I’ve really put effort into!” He corrected himself shortly after. “I mean, I’ve been meaning to, but how- and out of everyone for me to meet, you?” _

_ ‘I’ve been told I was different.’ Dark said dryly. ‘The other… egos… as you call us, can’t sense you. Wilford can, but besides him, I am the only one who can really feel what you’re doing. But since I have almost no memories to go off of-‘ he raised shadowy arms to make a point. ‘I have no form of my own.’ _

_ Mark opened his mouth to speak, before closing it. When he finally got words out, they were soft. “Do they really fight that much?” _

_ ‘They want power.’ Dark said. ‘They have barely any connection to you. They want more interaction. They’re starved, in that manner.’ _

_ “And you?” _

_ Dark shrugged. ‘I don’t have anything to want, because I’ve never felt anything but pain. The only thing I could say I want is for you to sleep more. They are dazed when you aren’t awake.’ _

_ “And you aren’t?” _

_ ‘Do I look to be?’ _

_ Mark was quiet for a long while. “So, when they fight, they don’t feel the pain they inflict, only you do. Only you, not even Wilford?” _

_ ‘Correct.’ _

_ “And they just want more interaction with me? If I use them more, in skits and stuff, they’ll be more content, and you’ll suffer less.” _

_ ‘In theory, Yes.’ Dark said monotonously, trying to keep the hope from his voice. ‘But that’s just in theory.’ _

_ Mark chuckled, as if something in his words had been funny to him. He didn’t speak on it, though. Taking a deep breath, he smiled. “This whole thing is so crazy… I mean, the egos I created are essentially alive inside of me. This is a scientific marvel… what am I saying I’d be sent straight to the loony bin. And you, Dark. I’d thought it would be funny if I tried to creep out my fans after a horror game. I only did it twice, but look at you, you’re here.” _

_ Mark’s amusement spread to Dark, and the shadow cracked a grin. ‘It is strange. I do have a request, though.’ _

_ “Go for it.” _

_ ‘Do put me in a better outfit than the ones you picked out for the others.’ Dark wrinkled his nose. ‘The only costume that is bearable is Google’s and all he wears is a shirt and pants.’ _

_ Mark laughed, and the sound was so much lighter and so much more pure than anything else Dark had ever heard. _

_ Then, it was all gone. _

_ He was back in the room with the egos, and Wilford was in front of him, worry in his eyes but a great big grin on his face. ‘Did you see the soul?’ _

_ ‘What’s the soul?’ Dark more or less knew what it was, more or less knew that he had just seen it, the purity and brightness of the thing he touched that threw him into Mark’s dream. And Mark’s last laugh, that was the soul as well, he knew. _

_ ‘The soul’s right next to us, you know?’ Wilford started, and the other egos had started to gain back lucidity, and Dark felt Mark wake. ‘The room actually protects the soul. We were created, half from the soul of our host, and half from belief.’ _

_ Belief. Dark had heard of that before. ‘What belief?’ _

_ ‘Our host is famous.’ Wilford replied. ‘Whenever he plays as us, if his fans like us, they started to think about us, wonder what we’re like, what we do, they fill in the dots our host left behind. That’s belief. When enough people get into it, enough souls truly believe in the same thing, the host soul can make it happen. In this case, the host soul is our host.’ _

_ ‘And that’s why I’m special.’ Dark said. ‘Because I’ve only appeared for less then a minute, but I have enough belief for our host’s soul to make me.’ _

_ ‘That’s why we must protect his soul, as well.’ Wilford nodded, moving in front of Dark as the others started their daily routine. Dark barely noticed the pain anymore. ‘Every soul can make belief, but not every soul can mold it into something.’ Then Wilford grinned, a sparkle in his eyes that held so much playful mischief. ‘That’s why Mark’s soul is special.’ _

_ Dark blinked as Wilford moved away. Since when had he known their host’s name? _

  
  


_ It wasn’t long until a commotion sprung up in their small room. Their host, Mark, seemed to be acting something out. Something that would require one of the egos. _

_ When Mark created a video using one of the egos, he basically channeled them. Dark could see them being channeled, he could see bright tendrils of light link up to them, even though they were invisible to the rest of them. He could see the tendrils now. _

_ They were coming towards him. _

_ The first one touched his nose, and suddenly, there was light again, just as bright as Mark’s dreams were. He didn’t control anything, but he could see cameras and a computer. He could hear what Mark was saying and doing, he knew that the man was recording a video. A video he would be in. _

_ ‘What is this?’ He asked aloud, and he felt Mark jump. _

_ “Dark?!” The man yelped. _

_ ‘Who else?’ Dark said boredly, hiding the surprised that Mark could, in fact, hear him. _

_ Mark scoffed. “You can stop with the facade, Dark. It doesn’t work on someone who’s seen everything that makes you, you.” _

_ Maybe he shouldn’t of let Mark touch his being. But he was being channeled, so at least that was that. _

_ ‘This is the character I am believed to be.’ Dark said instead. ‘So it is the character I will be.’ _

_ “What’s the character you are around Wilford?” Mark asked, and Dark again cursed himself for showing Mark everything. _

_ ‘The character I was when I was first brought to life.’ Dark answered, keeping his slightly bored drawl. _

_ “How do we bring that back out?” Mark asked. _

_ ‘Erase away the pain and rewrite your fans’ memories.’ Dark said dully. ‘But then, I wouldn’t be as interesting to them. They think of me as… the dark side of you, hence the name Darkiplier, Yes? To let me be who I was, who I want to be, you would need to change everything, but you can’t change anything without worsening it.’ _

_ Hard, but true. _

_ He was expecting Mark to stop channeling him. Maybe he’d channel Wilford instead, Wil would love it. _

_ Instead, he grumbled out a “Fuck you.” Before going back to his screen. “If you’re supposed to be bad, you aren’t doing a good job, are you?” _

_ ‘Just because I am made of belief, doesn’t mean it controls me.’ Dark said curtly. ‘I don’t have enough belief to do that, at least.’ _

_ Mark paused, as if realizing something, before shaking it off. The man was silent as he recorded something. After he finished, he went into editing. Before he started, though, he went and changed, putting on a suit and doing something with dark markup around his eyes. He looked at himself in the mirror, as if to give Dark a good look, before sitting back at his seat. He recorded some short clips, before going back to editing. _

_ ‘Why am I here?’ Dark finally asked as he edited. From the computer clock, he had been channeled for hours now. _

_ “You said you feel the other ego’s pain, even though they can’t.” Mark said. “Can you feel them right now?” _

_ Dark paused. No, he couldn’t. It wasn’t like when Mark was sleeping, and they were dazed. No, he truly couldn’t feel them at all. It was scary and so incredibly relieving at the same time. ‘I cannot.’ _

_ He felt Mark grin. “Aren’t I smart? I think that deserves a word of gratitude.” _

_ Dark sighed. ‘I can deal with it by myself.’ _

_ “Thanks Markimoo, that’s great, you’re so awesome. That’s what you just said.” Mark mumbled as he edited away.  _

_ ‘...Thank you.’ _

_ Mark paused then, looking at nothing. “No problem. No one deserves to feel pain constantly.” _

_ Dark was silent as Mark finished. When he was done, he showed Dark the ending. It was another horror game, but at the end, he had the face cam taking the entire screen. At points, it would cut to him in the suit, dark eyes glaring at the camera. He had edited his skin to be grey as well. _

_ “What do you think?” Mark asked. _

_ Dark was silent for a moment. ‘If this is what I am to look like, I would be fine with it.’ _

_ “You’re great Markimoo-“ _

_ ‘Please stop.’ Dark groaned. Mark gave off a little chuckle, before starting the upload of his video. _

_ And then, Dark was back with the other egos, in their dimly lit room. _

  
  


_ The other egos didn’t seem to know who had been channeled, and after a bought of truly rough fighting, they shuffled away from each other with growls of anger. Wilford seemed to know, as he was the only one who noticed how still Dark was the entire time they were waiting to be channeled. He said nothing about it, though. _

_ It was Google who finally figured out. It was after the video had been uploaded, and Dark had slowly, but surely started to take form. He was still mostly shadow, but the outline of a person could be seen hiding inside of it now. _

_ ‘There is a 87% chance that the last channeling was for Dark.’ Google said aloud. It was one of those times where no one was fighting, and it was just silent. Dark sat against a corner, like he usually did, and Wilford was joking with the squirrel king. _

_ Suddenly, for once, the attention was all on him. _

_ ‘Dark?’ Dr. Iplier said incredulously. ‘Ridiculous, He wasn’t even meant to be one of us. He should be dead.’ _

_ Dark would take offense, but he knew the Dr. had no control over that verbal tic.  _

_ ‘The Host tells his friends that he thinks Google is correct.’ The author had changed to the Host over time. It was those three who fought most of the time, with the smaller egos joining in every now and then. They never went after Wilford, though, for some reason. And since he had basically claimed protection over Dark, he was usually fine. _

_ ‘Look at Dark.’ Google glitched slightly. ‘He is forming a body. Logical explanation, he had gained more belief. Cause, he has been in a new video. He has been recently channeled.’ _

_ ‘But why channel him, the Host asks.’ _

_ ‘Doesn’t make to much sense.’ Silver Shepard said, but he was inching closer to where Dark sat. ‘But I can see the form.’ _

_ ‘Our host hasn’t channeled anyone in a while. Why him?’ Dr. Iplier asked, more confused than angry. They didn’t see him as a threat or competition, at least, not yet. Not when he was still such a small thing. _

_ ‘I could ask the same question about all of us.’ Wilford said. ‘Our host doesn’t know about us, it’d be to much to ask into random thought patterns.’ _

_ ‘Says the one with his own tv show.’ Someone muttered, but then there was a yelp and Dark could see a knife poking out of the wall and the Dr. quivering in fear. _

_ That ended the conversation. _

_ Dark let out a sigh of relief, sinking back down. Wilford hadn’t ever hurt someone, not since he told the pink madman about the pain it cause him. Wilford always came close, but he always missed, only snagging clothes or cutting hair. _

_ Dark was thankful beyond relief, he didn’t have to deal with that pain of phantom stab wounds. _

  
  


_ The next day, as they all snapped out of their dazes, an outroar overtook the room. _

_ Dark, in one day, went from a barely formed body to completely formed, exactly how Mark looked like in his editing, with just a little bit more eyeshadow and terrifying red eyes. He had his suit, and he had a dark shadowy aura. _

_ ‘How?!’ The Doctor sputtered. ‘It took Wilford days to form fully in the beginning! There is no way so much belief built so quickly!’ _

_ ‘Our host is becoming more popular.’ Wilford said in defense. ‘If he creates anymore of us, they might form even faster.’ _

_ ‘Deflecting.’ Google said. ‘Wilford is deflecting our curiosity. Dark is an anomaly, and Wilford knew it. The probability that he has known for a long time is over 90%.’ _

_ ‘The Host wants to know why you hid it.’ _

_ Wilford’s face took a sharp, deadly turn. ‘You know why.’ _

_ Dark was hoping that that was the end of it, since that was usually the end of it, but then it all went to hell. _

_ They all looked up to the ceiling as they felt Mark start to channel one of them. Dark could see the bright light tendrils emerge. _

_ They went for Wilford. _

_ Wilford seemed to know they would, too. With one final snarl at the other egos, he sent a grin towards Dark. _

_ And then he was gone. His body leaned against the wall, sitting down before stilling. _

_ It took a little bit for them to actually converge. They didn’t want to deal with Wilford afterwards, but Wil couldn’t cause them any pain, and even if he could it would hurt Dark to. At some point, they had all gotten uncomfortably close, and Dark was uncharacteristically scared. He’s never been the center of attention before. _

_ He doesn’t know which one of them pulled him into a standing position, but all of the egos, big or small were around him. He didn’t glare, but he set his eyes and jaw. _

_ Maybe, if he was the one getting hurt, he wouldn’t feel it. Or they would feel it. Wishful thinking. _

_ ‘What makes you so special?’ Someone asked. ‘You’ve been under Wilford’s wing since you were created.’ _

_ ‘I’m the dark version of Mark.’ Dark said, ‘I was bound to gain belief some day.’ _

_ Google beeped. ‘Our host’s name is Mark? How did you inquire this information?’ _

_ Dark was done with lying, with pretending he was nothing when he wasn’t. Truthfully, he loved all of the other egos, he really did, just like the others did, even if they fought all of the time. They were a family, dysfunctional or not. They were all a part of a whole, and no matter how many times Dark has cursed them for causing him pain, or any time they overlooked him because he was small, he still loved them like family. He didn’t regret it either. _

_ He didn’t want to lie anymore. _

_ ‘He told me.’ Dark said simply. _

_ The silence that overtook the room felt louder than anything he’s ever heard. _

_ ‘Impossible! The Host roars. None of us have ever talked to our host before.’ _

_ ‘I have.’ Dark said. ‘And I think Wilford has, on some level. I found his soul one night, and helped him out of a nightmare. Then, we talked while he channeled me.’ _

_ Another bout of silence, and he wondered what he saw that got to them this time. ‘You… saw his soul?’ _

_ ‘I did.’ _

_ ‘This fluctuating between someone posh and the normal you is very weird.’ Dr. iplier stated. ‘That is not healthy. I’m sorry, but you’re dying.’ _

_ ‘Base of the data collected from early experiments, Dark is going through belief shifting. Since he has been without belief for so long, he has created his own personality, and it is now being erased as his belief’s personality sets in.’ Google drones on. _

_ Dark kept his face straight, hiding that fact that Google’s words terrified him. His personality was going to… shift? Change? He’s seen it do so already, when he talks to Mark. His voice goes straight, always with a slight drawl and always bored sounding. When he’s interested the drawl picks up slightly and he sounds malicious. That’s who he’s turning into? _

_ One of the smaller egos hissed. ‘And what makes him special enough to get to talk to our host?’ The ego jabbed him in the shoulder, not removing his hand afterwards. Dark could feel the ego try and take his energy for his own. ‘He’s not!’ _

_ Dark wasn’t going to fight him. If he was going to turn into the monster he could see himself turning into, he’d rather just disappear forever. At least the smaller ego would have more power. And he wouldn’t be in pain anymore. _

_ It’d be freedom. _

_ But what would Wilford think? _

_ Wilford would come back to find him gone. He’d kill whatever ego did it, maim if he was feeling forgiving. _

_ The second of doubt he had was all it took. _

_ The ego that was taking his energy yelped, trying to pull away, even though he couldn’t. Dark turned to look as the man exploded into dark energy, circling around Dark before diving into his chest. _

_ Dark looked up, wide eyed. The ego wasn’t standing there anymore, he was gone, Dark didn’t imagine it. The others had taken a step back, fear etched on their faces. ‘Wha… What happened?’ _

_ It was then that Wilford’s body moved, and the man stood up, fixing his mustache. He froze when he saw the fear on everyone’s faces. _

_ He sighed. ‘And so it begins.’ _

  
  


_ Everyone left Dark alone, only speaking to him from a distance. He still had his corner, and Wilford still spoke with him, unscarred of what he could do. _

_ The room they were in was always dim, so it took a while for one of them to realize the dark tainted looking shadows covering the wall behind Dark. They inched towards the ceiling and floor slowly, but they were still unnerving. _

_ Silver Shepherd touched them by accident one day, and screamed in pain. Dark didn’t feel hurt, but he watched in horror as the black tar slowly overtook the ego’s body. _

_ It took two days for the ego to turn into dark energy. It spun around the room once, before crashing into Dark. _

_ Dark absorbed it, before curling into a ball and crying. _

_ ‘Why me? Why are they all dying? What did I do?’ He asked Wilford the next day. ‘How do I stop it?’ _

_ Wilford grinned, and Dark couldn’t see the pain he held behind it. ‘I don’t have all the answers, kid. This was going to happen, everyone knew it was. They just all wanted it to be themselves.’ _

_ Dark’s sadness turned to anger, and he glared at the ego. ‘You knew one of us was going to absorb all of the smaller egos, and you never told me? You knew it would be me all along and you never told me?!’ _

_ He was mad, but at least Wilford and Google would be okay. They were the two strongest egos. Hopefully the Host and Dr. Iplier would be okay too, but the others wouldn’t be, Dark knew that. _

_ He could only watch it happen. The taint around him had touched the ceiling, and it was on the floor as well. _

_ But Wilford was sitting on it and he was fine, so at least there was that. _

_ Dark hung to that happy thought like it was a lifeline. _

  
  


_ Mark was having a nightmare again, another ocean one, but this time his friend was drowning and he couldn’t save him. _

_ Dark sighed, snapping his fingers. They were back in the meadow for only a moment before Mark woke up. _

_ He was channeled later that day, but he refused to talk. He doesn’t know how much time passes in the room he lives in, but his host was significantly more famous and they were doing a higher state production. They had done one before, with a few other egos, but this one was just him. _

_ “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Mark said as he washed his hands in the bathroom. _

_ Dark stayed silent for a moment, before speaking. ‘I’m tainting everything I touch.’ _

_ And then he cut the channel. He was gone. _

  
  


_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. He didn’t taint the soul when he went to help with Mark’s nightmare. He didn’t taint Wilford. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He repeated the mantra over and over again. He repeated it as two other egos died. _

_ It was only the big ones left. It was over. _

_ It’d be okay now. _

 

_ It wasn’t okay. _

 

_ A while after he was channeled, something strange came over him. Raw anger and hatred… towards Mark. He was extremely confused, Mark had never done anything bad to him. _

_ Mark had done everything bad to  **him** . _

_ Mark had helped him. He wasn’t in pain anymore. _

_Mark was **twisted**. He **caused** **him** **pain**._

_ Mark deserved to be protected. _

_**Mark** **deserved** **to** _ **_die._ **

  
  


_ He had been planning his creator’s death for a long while. Wilford didn’t talk to him too much, didn’t talk much at all, really. He still always smiled, but he was weary as well. _

_ Dark was snapped out of his blind anger by a single thought. ‘Dark is low key really sassy.’ _

_ He blinked, trying to shake the thought out. He had never been sassy. And how had enough people believed that for him to actually feel it? It was such a rare thing far enough away from his usual belief that he felt the difference. _

_ His belief. Belief. His belief personality. Not his own. _

_ The anger and hatred he had been holding drained out. Belief didn’t define him. He wasn’t just Dark’s belief, he was the egos he had absorbed beliefs as well. He had his own personality. _

_ He couldn’t let go of it. He couldn’t turn into the monster the belief was making. He was his own and he will stay that way. They other egos don’t deserve to deal with a monster. _

_ He let out a deep breath, smiling slightly. He hadn’t felt like himself for a while now. _

_ A gasp across the room made him look up. _

_ Dr. Iplier held his arm, which was covered in dark shadows. His shadows. His taint. _

_ ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but I am going to die.’ _

 

_ In what he was sure was only a day, the Dr. was gone and the Host was almost fully tainted. _

 

_ Wilford was channeled at a point, and after he came back, Dark was channeled afterwards. _

_ ‘What do you want?’ Dark asked, stomping out any murderous feelings he felt. _

_ “What are you doing here?” Mark asked. “I need Bing.” _

_ Dark froze. Bing was gone. _

_ But he wasn’t. _

_ ‘He’s here too.’ Dark said. ‘Do whatever you need to.’ _

_ And he was there. Dark could feel him, strangely. Bing was there, and Mark was acting exactly like he would if Bing had been channeled. He could even hear him if he strained his ears, laughing that Bing laugh of his and praising his skateboard. _

_ They weren’t dead. _

_ They weren’t dead. _

_ “Does this have to do with what you said before?” Mark asked gently. _

_ Dark hummed to show that he was right. ‘I’m absorbing the other egos, against my own will. The only two strong enough to be unaffected are Wilford and Google.’ _

_ “You’re eating them?!?” Mark exclaimed. “My insides are eating each other!” _

_ Dark rolled his eyes. ‘Absorbing, dumbass. I can feel them when you channel them. They are still here.’ _

_ He wasn’t going to explain to Mark the details, he still didn’t understand himself fully. Bing’s energy was now Dark’s, but it was still him. The new energy Bing was getting goes to Dark, but his core energy is still his. He was still there, next to the other egos energy. Still there. _

_ They weren’t dead. _

_ They weren’t dead. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He isn’t his belief’s personality. _

_ He isn’t his belief’s personality. _

_ They weren’t. He didn’t. He isn’t. _

  
  


_ When he got back, Host’s energy was waiting for him, and Google stared sadly at nothing, his fingers coated in shadow. _

  
  


_ When Google went, he lost it. With a roar of agony, the room they had known forever cracked and broke apart. Dark left most of his energy surrounding Mark’s soul, but took some of his and got Wilford to follow him up to where the mind was. _

_ ‘Look at this!’ Dark grinned, before creating a mindscape before them. Placing a large manor with a shooting range outside on a patch of grassy land. ‘It came to me that anything is possible in the mind. Maybe, if I can figure it out, we can bring the others back, and they can stay here.’ _

_ Wilford grinned weakly. ‘Good… idea..’ _

_ Dark frowned, horror starting to peak in his eyes. “Wilford? Wil, what’s wrong?’ _

_ Grin never leaving, Wilford pulled down his shirt slightly. Shadows colored his collarbone. Pulling off his gloves (since when did he wear gloves-) he held up his hands, showing off his shadow covered hands. _

_ Dark couldn’t speak. _

_ ‘Come on… don’t I get an award?’ Wilford said weakly. ‘I’ve had it since the beginning, and I’m the last one left. I think I… deserve… an award-‘ he swayed, crumpling on the grass. _

_ Dark didn’t moved. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ Wilford shakingly moved to a sitting position, still grinning. ‘I still got a bit left in me. I guess I should tell you that I knew this would happen, from the beginning. I knew from the moment I saw you that you’d do this. And you know what? I let it happen. I made sure it happen. You know why?’ _

_ Dark didn’t say anything. _

_ ‘Because a group of weak egos couldn’t protect Mark. The soul knew that. The soul needed a bodyguard, and made the perfect one in you. We were just… things to help you get there.’ _

_ Dark took a step forward, but didn’t go farther. _

_ Wilford coughed. ‘But don’t blame the soul- I bet my favorite gun that it had no clue with what it was doing. I bet it still doesn’t. That thing couldn’t do that to save itself, it’s way to pure. The mind probably did it subconsciously, planted it into the soul. I dunno, a theory for another day…’ _

_ Dark forced himself to move, falling on his knees in front of the other ego. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ ‘I dunno why I was different, either.’ Wilford said. ‘Maybe I was a prototype. A 1.0 to your 2.0. The thing is, I’m not afraid. I’ll be with all the other egos, I’ll just be… different.’ His eyes widened, as if he just remembered something. ‘Dark, this is important. When we are absorbed by you, you take our energy, but you take purely belief energy. The personality we make for ourselves goes somewhere- I really don’t know where. Back with the soul, maybe, I dunno, but you need to understand. Don’t try to reverse it, it’ll be of no use, I don’t want you to find me again, because it won’t be me.’ _

_ It won’t be Wilford, the one who’s protected and guided him. It’ll be the ego who liked to stab things and was crazy and Dark couldn’t handle it anymore. _

_ Wilford was ready to catch him when he went for a hug, and neither planned to let go. _

 

_ They stayed like that for a long time. Until Dark fell forward because Wilford was gone. _

_ Dark looked up into the mindscape (the lonely, empty mindscape) he had created. _

_ He screamed. _

  
  


_ ‘Why did you do this?!’ _

_ Dark didn’t know why he expected a response. The soul never spoke to him, only showed him where Mark’s nightmares were. It never did anything besides that. _

_ It created him, though. It made him do this… to his family. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ Screw it. _

_ Dark lashed out, shadowy tendrils of energy whipping at the soul. It hit with a crack. _

_ The soul didn’t shudder or shake. No blemish appeared. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t taint, couldn’t hurt it. _

_ The soul was Mark’s. He couldn’t hurt Mark. _

_ Dark couldn’t, but maybe Darkiplier wouldn’t care. Darkiplier didn’t worry about other people, didn’t care about those underneath him. His belief’s personality only cared for himself. _

_ ‘Is this what you wanted me to do?’ Dark asked slowly. ‘This entire time?’ _

_ The soul didn’t do anything. It never did anything. _

_ ‘Fine then.’ Dark closed his eyes. _

_ They weren’t dead. _

_ He didn’t taint everything he touched. _

_ He isn’t his belief’s personality. _

_ They were dead. They aren’t coming back. _

_ He tainted everything he touched. The soul the only exception. _

_ He was his belief’s personality. No point trying to deny. _

_ Something whispered at him, something from within the soul. ‘Why not be both?’ _

_ And it clicked. _

_ The soul wasn’t at fault. He knew that now. He had always known that. _

_ He wasn’t Darkiplier. He wasn’t Dark. He was both. _

_ Dark opened his eyes, a small smirk gracing his face. Standing ramrod straight, he crossed his arms behind him after he fixed his cuffs.  _ **_One day, we must have a full two sided conversation. I want to know how much you were actually involved in this, and how much was just as much forced on you as us._ **

_ Dark spun around, going back to his mindscape. _

_ He stayed there, alone but watching the outside world, for a long, long, time. He visited the soul every now and then, still silent and still bright and warm and accepting. Still  _ **_innocent._ ** _ If he listened hard enough, he could hear someone. Who, he didn’t know. Familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to it. _

_ He’d tried talking to it.  _ **_Why did you create me?_ ** _ He’d ask.  _ **_What is my purpose?_ **

_ He didn’t know why he asked, though. The soul never answered. _

_ He never did blame it though. Not after the first time. _

_ He left every conversation as lonely as he came, going back to his empty house. He’d go back and watch as Mark continued his life. He’d speak every now and then, but for the most part he stayed silent and grew numb to his surroundings. _

_ He was alone in this world, this strange, strange world. He was created from millions but none knew of him. He had a family and he tainted and destroyed them. He could feel them but unless they were channeled he couldn’t communicate with them. After a while, he stopped trying. He accepted his role. He tainted everything. He would be alone, for the rest of his life. _

_ And he was alone. All alone. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ And then he met Anti. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s to explain some stuff.  
> The soul (Mark’s) didn’t know any of this was happening. When the soul and mind are where they are supposed to be (in the correct body together) they work as one, as one thing, the body. The soul can’t see what’s happening inside the body, because it’s hooked up to the mind and the mind sees the outside world. When they’re apart, the soul can only see what’s around them, be it inside a head or not. The egos are different, of course, because they’re made of both soul and belief. All of that basically means, the soul was, as Dark said, innocent. And that’s why none of the souls realized this happened, why they (specifically Jack’s and Mark’s souls) haven’t talked to Dark and Anti about it.  
> Oh, and just for a slightly happier note, when Wilford said that the personalities they created for themselves disappeared once they were ‘tainted’, he wasn’t completely correct. They don’t disappear, they merge back with the soul. The voice that said ‘why not be both?’ Yep, that was him.


	18. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all viruses cause zombies... but in a human’s mind, well... you never know...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for 400 hits!  
> This chapter is mostly backstory on the counterparts, but it’s important still.
> 
>  
> 
> No warnings... I think.  
> A lil gory paragraph starting at Dark remembers how... but that’s it.

When Dark finally got up the world was blurry around him.

He had been placed again on one of the couches. Anti was sprawled out on another couch, and Mad and Mare shared the last one. They were watching something on a tv Dark could hear but not see.

Mare glanced at him, and Dark could be mistaken, but it looked like the ego had a splatter of blood on his forehead. “He’s awake.” The man grunted.

“That was quick.” Anti replied, still laying across the cushions of the couch. He didn’t even seem to care.

Dark frowned, moving to sit up. He couldn’t remember what really happened. He knew that agent Warf had showed up. The man had siphoned some of his energy, mainly the part of his energy that was generally Wilford. Not only had he taken Mark’s soul and hurt it, but he had also taken most of Wilford away from him.

Of course, Dark’s mess up had cause him to lose even more of what he cared about. He wondered why the others stayed with him- he’d lose them too, eventually.

Calm down, Dark. One problem at a time.

Now, the agent’s mind was so broken that the only thing it could do was speak, and that was only for his host’s soul’s benefit. If Dark had his way, the mind would be completely gone.

Afterwards, he took some time to heal the bruising forming on the soul. Each soul is primarily white, with a tint of color, the color depending on each person. His soul should not, however, have black blotches littering it’s surface. It looked like taint, or his own shadows, and Dark hated that. He healed it as quickly as he could.

The special thing about a soul is that it’s always pure. In the early stages of Dark’s life, the soul was the only thing his shadows couldn’t defile or taint, or harm. The fact that it looked like he had done something to hurt it didn’t sit with him correctly.

The fact that they could be hurt still doesn’t sit with him.

Dark blinked, looking away from the glitch and onto the other two. He squinted at Mare. “What happened to you?”

He had an idea, but he needed to be sure.

Mare had a glassy eyed look to him, one that Dark had only ever really seen before once. The four of them were put in an arena together, for them to test their strengths and weaknesses. Like usual, Anti and Dark just sliced whatever came at them and Mad and Mare stayed out of it.

Mad was sitting crossed legged on the floor, hands sprawled out in front of him as he accessed the technology beneath him, unknowingly to the scientists watching them. He had been doing that for a while when another test started up- foot long disks with razor sharp edges shooting from the walls. They only ever aimed them at their legs, and never higher, but Mad was at leg height when they started up.

Dark had turned to the sound of a sickening crunch, had heard Mare gasp (which had confused him more then the crunch, because Mare didn’t talk or do anything when they were tested) before seeing why. One of the vertical disks had hit the mad ego in the back of his head, splitting his head almost directly in the middle.

Dark remembers how bad it looked. The ego’s body went completely limp. One side of his head was still connected to his neck, but the other wasn’t, and it almost rolled away from the other, leaving a trail of blood and brain matter in its wake, broken pieces of skull littering after it. He could see the stem of the eye that had been disconnected, could see the blood covered eyeball as well.

It was revolting, but that wasn’t what got to him. What got to him was looking at Mad’s prone form, and seeing only half a soul left.

The disk had split his soul in half.

After that, men ran in, putting them back into their cells and running diagnostics on Mad. When they next saw him, Mad was fully healed but still unconscious.

It was before they knew that a soul could be healed.

It was at that point that Dark risked it to actually check on the downed ego, to see if there was even a chance or if it was just the husk of a body now. It was days after and he was still out of it, but as Dark travelled over in shadows and walked over to where he laid, Mad jerked up with a start, glassy eyed and out of it. He didn’t remember any of it. He didn’t know why his host’s soul was halved, or how long he was out.

And looking at Mare right now, he had the same glassy eyed dull stare that Mad had then.

“Knife to the skull.” Mare said, barely looking away from the tv. “Scratched Nate’s soul.”

His theory was proven. It wasn’t just a theory anymore.

He felt Mark’s soul chuckle at him, but he ignored it. He is allowed to make stupid mental comments every now and then.

Dark didn’t need to ask who did it, he just looked back to Anti. “What else did he do?”

“Nothin else of notice.” Anti replied. “Held guns ta our heads, planned ta spend ta rest of his life wit yer powers. Stabbing Mare was ta worst o’ it.”

Anti was to relaxed, to calm. That fact told Dark that something was off, that he was faking. Anti was always giddy after a fight, the only other time he wasn’t was when he came back from the gang’s warehouse.

And now, apparently.

He remembered Anti showing up in his mind, he remembered the glitch’s aura diving into his skull. That had hurt, but not as much as the feeling of his literal heart being crushed was. Because, no matter how cliche it was, Mark’s soul could only be described as a heart to him. It kept him alive, let him live and feel and learn. He didn’t need a mind, but he needed a heart.

And he could feel Mark laugh again, but his soul was shining brightly so he let the silent teasing go.

Dark sat up completely, moving his legs off the couch. After making sure he could actually walk (he didn’t want to make a fool of himself) he stood up, fixing his suit. He noticed the slight bruises around his wrist then, something he guess was to small for his energy to care about. They circled his wrists, thin lines that indecated that he had been tied up.

Dark didn’t ask.

“Sit back down.” Anti said offhandedly, still paying attention to the show. “There’s nothin else ta do right now.”

Dark didn’t want to listen, but his body thought it was the perfect thing to do, so he sat back down, watching whatever show the three were all so interested in.

Dark blinked, looking closer. It was some kind of documentary about the americas, and what happened and what’s happening.

And suddenly, he was interested too.

‘ _ The disease is known to be natural.’ _ Someone with a deep, calm voice murmured, on screen, a man was picking at his hair feverishly. ‘ _ But some think it was man made. The disease is spread through open wounds. It is easy to keep yourself from catching the infection, by practicing good hygiene, but that is proving near impossible if you live outside of a secure settlement. _ ’

The screen changed to an overhead view of a small town, surrounded in thick walls lined in barbwire. It was easy to tell that the camera was in a helicopter. Once the helicopter landed inside the walls and the camera left, they could see the size of the copter.

Anti whistled. “Tha’s ah military grade vehicle. No way news reporters hav’ that.”

“There are soldiers behind the camera.” Dark pointed out, glancing at the couch with the two quiet egos. Mare was staring at the screen, as was Mad, but Mad’s face was wrinkled in confusion.

‘ _ This is a small settlement in Nebraska.’ _ The announcer drawled.  _ ‘There are many settlements set up like this one in North America. Self sufficient, with their own farms, solar powered electricity, and wells.’ _

Anti looked confused, frowning as more soldiers moved past the camera. “Why is ta military in Nebraska?”

_ ‘Even though their walls are strong, and they are well protected, the citizens of the settlements in North America live in constant fear. Because of that, citizens plead with the government for ways out, into Europe. There are several ways out, but the hardest way by far is by completing the test.’ _

All of a sudden, Mare’s head whipped over to Mad, and Mad flinched, like something had hurt him. Dark stared at the two, confused over the strange behavior.

_ ‘This IQ test is almost impossible to pass. Since it’s been proctored, starting 50 years ago, only four other people have passed it. Today, we add another to that list.’ _

A teenage girl with long blonde hair, dressed in a black bulky bodysuit walked out of a house. Her face was flawless and beautiful, but the confusion and discomfort on her face told Dark that she didn’t usually wear that amount of makeup. He could see what looked like a makeup artist walking out behind her.  _ ‘Katena Volinski passed the test, making her the first person to pass the test in several years, the last being a male named Matthew Patrick. _ ’

Mad stood up silently, ducking under Dark and Anti’s gaze. He was in the kitchen and out of sight before Dark could say anything.

Anti arched his eyebrow, glancing at Mare before looking towards the kitchen. “What was that?”

Mare shifted uncomfortably. “Something he doesn’t want to remember.”

Dark didn’t like the sound of that, but Anti just nodded as if he understood. Dark sighed, everyone was getting more secrets, and he didn’t know what they were. That fact severely ticked him off.

As Dark put the pieces together, he frowned. He knew for a fact that even though he crushed his host’s counterpart’s mind the first time, it was still functional enough to cause trouble. The others haven’t said anything about mind troubles, but he doubted they didn’t have them. If Mare said Mad was remembering something… was that mind planting his own memories in his head?

_ ‘There are several different ways to be taken out of North America, over to Europe, with the test being the hardest. The others tests, acronymed P.I.E., vary in difficulty. ‘P’, persuasion. This is the second hardest test to pass, but the simplest one as well. You must persuade the proctor to take you to Europe. ‘I’, for intelligence, known as the IQ test. ‘E’ is efficiency. You must be quick and skillful to pass this test.’  _ A few clips showed up of people taking each test, one being on paper, one talking to someone, and one some kind of athletic obstacle course.

_ ‘Many citizens dislike the criteria for the tests, saying it is unnecessary, that it’s selecting skilled minors for government jobs. Some say they’re turning kids into brainwashed spies, but no evidence has been found for these accusations.’ _

Dark turned towards the kitchen, where Mad was watching the screen intently. He caught the ego’s eyes, hoping that his stare conveyed his message.

Mad twitched, looking down for a moment before looking up. His eyes hardened, as if he was about to go against Dark’s silent order, before he looked down again, nodding.

Dark turned back around, he had gotten his point across. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as satisfying as it had been before. Mad was rarely ever put in his place, and Dark loved doing it, but this time… it just wasn’t the same.

Mark’s soul brushed up against his energy, as if trying to comfort him.

He didn’t know why, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love how none of the egos really understand emotions... like... at all.  
> And Mad has a serious problem. His curiousity is going to get him killed. This isn’t foreshadowing, this is just pointing out the fact that he got half his skull chopped off because he was drunk off knowledge.


	19. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always watch the roads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost 500 hits I’m shook?
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Minor Characters- Death  
> Major Characters- Unsavory thoughts of blood, Mad being extra

The next day Mare listened from another room as Mad told Dark about everything that happened at Steph’s place, and from the tone of his voice, Mad very well didn’t want to. Mare clenched his fists slightly, irritated, but let it go with an exhale.

_ You can’t  _ ~~_ help _ ~~ _ him. _ His conscience hissed.  _ You can’t help  _ ~~_ anyone _ ~~ _. _

“Ye seem annoyed.” He heard, before feeling someone put an arm around his shoulders, hand holding a knife. The knife tapped against his chest playfully. “Want ta join me in releasin anger?”

Mare blinked, still straining to listen in to the other’s conversation while answering Anti. “Like yesterday?”

Anti grinned. “Exactly!”

Mare smiled in amusement. “We’re hitting the road in a hour.”

Anti shrugged. “Tey can start without us. I’ll jus glitch us back when tey leave city.”

Mare really shouldn’t. The men he was harming (killing) weren’t good people in the slightest, they were serial killers, rapists, gang members. But he wasn’t doing it to get them off the streets.

_ He was doing it because he loved feeling the blood drip down his arms as his victim- his subject’s eyes lost their shine… _

He blinked, shaking his head slightly to gain back his sense. “Remember yesterday? I almost lost it.”

Anti scoffed. “Have more trust in yerself. Ye won’t go crazy, and If ye do, I’ll jus bring ye back myself.”

He knew he shouldn’t. It was a bad idea and it was tempting to much. He wasn’t going to do it.

_ The serial killer cried out in pain and it was true music to his ears- he was addicted to the sound… _

“Lead the way.”

  
  


He had carved up two different criminals- a killer and a man who had bankrupted half the city in backhanded property deals and unemployment ploys- when Anti gripped his shoulder.

Mare, startled, turned around, releasing a piercing scream right in front of the glitch. Anti’s eardrums shattered instantly, and he clapped a hand to each ear as they poured blood.

“Gah, Jaysus Christ Mare, ta fuck?!” Anti yelled, removing his hands after Mare had stopped. They were coated in blood. “Look before ye fooking yell! Ta hell…”

Mare blinked, he mind clearing. After they left the apartment, his head went blurry. He knew what he was doing, but the switch had flipped, and he had started to get unhinged.

He was so caught up  _ in the cutting oh the blood he had made a masterpiece in his subject’s flesh  _ that he didn’t even realize that Anti had shown up from whatever he was doing.

“Sorry.” Mare murmured, unsure if the glitch could hear.

_ All you ever do is  _ ~~_ hurt _ ~~ _ those you claim to ~~trust~~. _ His conscience whispered.

Anti squinted at him. “I’m going ta say tha’ was an apology. Go screw yerself.” He picked up a shirt that he had put on the ground, tossing it to the manipulative ego. “Put tis on, god, yer not a clean killer at all. At least try, damnit!”

Anti grumbled the entire time Mare changed shirts, moving over to some leftover dirty clothes to wipe off his hands as dark energy weaves in and out of his ears. By the time Mare had finished, Anti was healed again.

“Sorry.” Mare felt the need to say again. He wasn’t close to Dark or Anti, and even though the first time they did this they both had a blast, this time Mare had screwed everything up.

Anti blinked. “Tha’  _ was _ an apology? Really? I was jokin.” He turned around with a smile, raising his hands. “An ego that apologizes fer a little ear rupture, I’ve seen it all!”

Mare could tell Anti wasn’t really upset, but he was still cautious when Anti startled. “Oh, ya. Dark and Mad left city lines a few minutes ago. Come on.”

He grabbed Mare’s shoulder before Mare could speak, and suddenly, they crashed into the back of the car Mare had ‘bought’ a while ago.

And by crash, he means  _ crashed. _

They were standing, but the place they teleported to didn’t have enough room, so their bodies were arrange in such a way that it would be fatal to a normal person.

Mare groaned, finally untangling himself from not only the car, but Anti as well. “Warning would be nice.”

Anti cackled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Mad snickered from the front of the car as Dark gave them a disapproving side glance. But that was the biggest commotion the car had for a while after.

  
  


“I think I get it.”

Mare blinked, looking back inside the car. It was quiet as Dark drove. Anti was playing on one of the new phones Mad had got and Mad wasn’t doing anything. But now the ego was talking and Mare was grateful for something to do, even if it was just listening. “What?”

“I was thinking about how weird this reality is.” Mad started. “Besides the fact that it’s going to explode. In our reality, no weapon can hurt a soul, but in this place, any weapon can. The strangest part, though, is that no one can see the soul, even though they can hurt it.”

The talk of souls gained the others’ attention. Anti looked up, grunting. “It is weird. Nothin’ in our reality can mess with souls or our energy either.”

“Exactly.” Mad agreed with a nod. “It got me thinking. In this world, souls aren’t impervious, most things can mess with them. If that’s the case, then why could the agents that took us from our hosts’ bodies even contain or touch our energy, not to mention our host’s souls? We were in our reality, no matter if they were using their own technology.”

Dark looked away from the wheel, eyes flashing. “What are you getting at?”

“I don’t think this world is just infected.” Mad started. “I think this entire reality is infected.” He paused. “And I think we are now, as well.”

  
  


After that happy note, Mad clamped his mouth shut as he tried to figure out more information. The car went along silently.

They were passing a cliff when it all went wrong.

They were turning a sharp blind curve when it happened. When they could finally see the other side, it was to late.

Google stood on the road, a helicopter and a Jeep behind him. Dark made to break, when the car went over something. In a matter of moments, the ride went from peaceful to dangerous and half hanging off a cliff.

“Nobody move!” Mare yelled, causing everyone to freeze. “Any weight shift could send us over.”

Anti turned his head a fraction. “Google’s comin tis way!”

Mad looked ready to panic. “Can you get the car into shadows using the head beams?”

Dark’s eyes darted around. They were on a cliff, close to a bridge that went over a waterfall. The fall wasn’t to steep, but it would wreck the car into the water and Dark was sure one of them would drown several times before they were all out. It was dark outside as well, the only light being from the car lights and a few lanterns on the ground below. He couldn’t use the car lights, though. They had to reach a surface and the lights didn’t make it down to the ground below. “No, they won’t work” He gritted out. “I could try the lights down the cliff, but if we fell to fast then we’d just be crushed. I need time to get us all into the shadows.”

“Twenty feet away!” Mare announced, looking outside.

“Can ye get yerself outside?” Anti asked in a rush.

“If I leave, this entire car will tip over.” Dark said, staying still.

“Fifteen!”

Mad snapped his head over, rattling the car. “Dark, trust me on this.”

“What?”

“Lean forward and push the car off.”

Dark paused, eyes widening. “What?! Why?!”

“Ten!”

“Trust me!” Mad said. “I have an idea and I don’t have time to explain!”

“He’s raising his hand!” Mare yelled in a panic, and Dark thought it might be pointed at him.

“ **_Trust me_ ** !”

Dark went with his gut, leaning fully toward and taking the car out of it’s precarious balance.

They were free falling towards the ground.

Dark knew it wouldn’t kill them, but it would hurt and they would be surrounded by the time they fully healed. In the seconds it took to reach the ground, he had wrapped Mark’s soul in a blanket of energy to shield it.

They never hit the ground.

Dark looked, confusion washing over them as he saw the car hovering a few feet over the ground.

He heard an exhausted groan next to him, and turned to see Mad, arms stretched out and sweating buckets, teeth gritted in obvious pain. “H...hurry u..up!”

The ego was… he was holding the car up… he was keeping the car from falling to the ground and into the water. And it was easy to tell that he was pushing his power to the limits- he always said his telekinesis was weak. Dark realized at that moment, when Mad couldn’t hold this anymore, they would be dropped to the ground, and gravity would take them into the water.

Dark snapped out of it, taking the car into shadows and miles away from the robot and his associates.

Once they landed, Mad slumped forward, panting from exhaustion. He leaned against the dashboard, and for a moment, it looked like he was okay. Dark realized that he was unconscious a few moments later.

“Did he…” Anti spoke up. “Jus’... hold ta car up… wit mind powers?”

“Telekinesis?” Mare asked.

“Whatever.” Anti shrugged him off. “He’s tat fookin strong wit it? He can hold a fookin full car? The worst I’ve seen ‘em do is snap a neck.”

“Might’ve been the adrenaline.” Mare said. “Look at him, he’s out of it.”

Dark leaned back. The fall had pumped him full of adrenaline too, and now he was out as well. Adding onto the car transportation, and he was tired as well.

He drove for another few minutes, before realizing that Mare had fallen asleep. As far as he knows, this was the first time Mare’s slept since they all escaped, so he let the ego sleep.

That left them, though, with only one other choice to drive in place of Dark, and he wasn’t going to let Anti drive again unless necessary. 

So he waited until he came across a back road, pulling onto it and parking in a nook in said backroad, turning off the car. “I’m getting some sleep.”

Anti frowned, “Lemme drive ten.”

“Absolutely not.” Dark retorted. “Get some rest as well, Anti.”

“Not tired.”

“You sound like a five year old.” Dark said, before shrugging. “Suit yourself, I’m getting some rest.”

And that was the end of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know... I wanna say Mad is my favorite ego, but I really can’t decide anymore... cause Mare is Mare and Dark is sad and Anti is great and gosh darnit I love em all.  
> And Mad needs to stoooop. Imagine someone gives you Thor’s hammer, and you can’t let go, but your likely to die if you hold it for a few more seconds. That was Mad at the end of that.


	20. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never lose hope so quickly, but never grasp onto nothing. One will break you, and the other will make you fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 600 hits I’m shook?
> 
> Warnings?
> 
> Minor Characters- Vague killing. Mentions of blood?  
> Major Characters- Who needs a head anyway?

Anti was the one that needed the least amount of sleep, so he woke up first.

Their car was surrounded. By hundreds, maybe even a thousand men. Google stood in the front, but Anti could barely see the robot, since it was pitch black.

Pitch black.

There’s no shadows.

How long had they been here, before he woke up? He checked the car clock… he’s only been asleep for an hour!

He nudged the person he was closest too, Mare. The ego woke quite loudly, and Anti quickly slapped a hand over his mouth. The men outside weren’t standing watching them. They were in groups, chatting idly with each other. Google stood half watching, but he seemed to be in sleep mode.

But all of their guns were pointed towards their car, they knew they were here.

Mare had woken up completely, and his eyes were wide in shock. He gulped slightly, shaking Mad awake in the front as Anti did the same for Dark.

“Shit.” Mad muttered when he was coherent. The mad ego still looked awful from overexerting his powers. “Shit shit shit!” He turned towards Dark, whispering. “Do you have enough light to transport us away?”

Dark scowled. “No, it’s pitch black out there.” He looked outside. “They broke our car lights.”

Anti checked, frowning when he was right. All of the men were wearing goggles as well, like night vision. Not only could Dark not use shadows without any light, but the egos couldn’t see as well as they could.

“I might be able to shut off their guns.” Mad suggested weakly, and it was never good when Mad didn’t have a plan. “They’re a lot more high tech then our dimension’s.”

“Good Plan B.” Mare said. “Maybe Anti can glitch the car away, like Dark did.”

Anti nodded, the slight panic thrumming through him causing his accent to thicken. “Grab onta me jus’ incase I can’t move ta car wit us.”

He placed his hands on the car seats, waiting for the others to grab on somewhere before closing his eyes to concentrate.

There was a loud sound.

Dark felt something splat on his face.

Dark squinted, before his eyes widened impossibly wide. Mare barely had time to catch the falling ego. The three were silent. What had happened?

Half of Anti’s head had been blown clean off, vaporized, his jaw being the only thing left. 

It reminded Dark of Mad’s injury. But worse.

Dark energy flew from the blown open skull, like tendrils flying in the wind, still connected to his skull. After a moment, though, they stopped.

They just  _ stopped. _

Mad was the first to look away, and he flinched, looking up and jabbing on the lights inside the car. It wasn’t much, but in the complete darkness, it was like a bonfire.

Dark lashed out, killing everyone within the light’s circle and slicing Google into pieces, before forming a shadow dome around them. Unworried about the soldiers, he turned back to Anti.

His skin was turning grey, like it was dying. It shouldn’t do that, since Anti’s energy kept it alive. Anti didn’t lose all of his energy, that blast wasn’t enough-

Oh no.

Jack’s soul.

He didn’t see the familiar shine of a soul anywhere on the body.

No, no… nononono _ nononono _ **_nononono!_ **

“God damnit Anti!” He shouted, but his voice was a whisper. The dark energy lashing out of his head got weaker, fading into nothing. It was disappearing,  _ Anti was disappearing. _

He resituated the body, taking the rest of the head from Mare, placing both of his hands on either side of it. Stretching out his own energy, he felt the body rebuild itself, gaining warmth and skin tone. His own energy snaked out from the broken head, latching together almost furiously.

Dark’s energy. Not Anti’s. Anti wasn’t responding.

“It was Google.” Mare said quietly. “He had his other hand raised at us. One hand stuns… the other.. does this.”

Mad was quiet.

His energy finished repairing his head. Several other tendrils snaked up on the top of his head, before breaking apart and forming hair. Dark pushed his energy further, fulling restoring his face.  **_I’m done._ ** He thought.  **_Now get back out here you pest._ **

_ Dark? _

He clenched his teeth, shutting his eyes and looking away. He didn’t want to deal with Mark right now. He didn’t want to tell him, he didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that…

Mad giggled. It snapped him out of his thoughts.

He didn’t bother saying anything, just one glance at the man told him all he needed to know. Glossy dull eyes, maniacal smile, he wasn’t there.

He didn’t move when Mad opened the car door either, or when stumbled out, moving through the shadows shielding them. He didn’t react when he heard guns going off, when he heard screams of pain.

_ Dark… _ Mark could feel the emotions rolling off of the ego. He knew.  _...who? _

He still didn’t answer, _because_ _he wasn’t dead, he can’t_ ** _die that’s not how this works he’s not dead he’s fine everything is fine-_**

“Dark.”

His head jerked up, and in his surprise, he sent a thin shadow straight through Mare’s jugular. Mare choked for a moment, coughing. Dark retracted the shadow silently. Mare took a moment to heal, pointing at Anti’s body while coughing.

In his thoughts, he had stopped placing energy into the body. When he looked down, he expected to see grey, but the body… he was still that pale tone he usually was.

Dark smashed the hope that formed in his head. Why would he need hope, Anti had never died-

_ Anti? _

He hadn’t realized, he was projecting his thoughts. Mark could hear them.  _ Anti… and Jack? What about Jack?! _

Dark sighed, giving in to his host’s questions.  **_The only way we can die is if our host’s soul is destroyed._ **

It was silent for a moment. He expected a reply, but after his words, the soul had practically thrown the destroyed beyond repair mind away, moving into the corner of his mind.

Dark looked back down at Anti, who was still and silent. His body wasn’t graying, which gave him second thoughts. Jack’s entire soul would have to be destroyed to kill Anti, if only a little bit of it survived, Anti would be able to heal it.

But whatever Google used, it destroyed more then half of his head. If Anti had Jack in the center of his head (where he had Mark) his soul would’ve been entirely destroyed.

Then why isn’t he graying anymore?

And if he wasn’t dead before, then why was he graying?

He felt a tug on his shield, and he saw Mad step through, the entire front half of his body covered in blood, in his hand, some sort of container. His clothes were riddled with bullet holes, and he was wearing some goggles that the men outside wore. When he pulled them up, it showed the only clean part of his face.

Dark, curious, lowered his shield. Everyone outside was dead, all with an equal amount of bullet wounds that Mad had. Even Google had them, the robot was twitching, sparks flying out of an open eye socket.

Mad just grinned. “He’s not dead!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m that type of person that wants to end on a big cliffhanger but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not to mention he’s a major character and I’d Have to put a warning on it...  
> Note- Unhinged Mad is back~


	21. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who needs friends when you’re insane? Poking and prodding them is more fun anyway...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So mayyyyyybeeeee I forgot to upload... my b.  
> I also forgot that I left off at a pretty precarious place, heh...
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings?  
> Major Characters- Mentions of Blood, Who needs two eyes? Violence  
> Minor Characters- None

“How?” Was all Dark asked.

“Please, they spent who knows how long working on this project- they wouldn’t kill one of us off like that.” Mad answered, still twitchy and giggly, even though it looked like his body was giving up on him. “I thought about it while I was out here- they still don’t know of our souls, they only know about our energy. And that it’s located up here.” Mad pointed to his head.

“Get to the point, Mad.” Mare snapped. He, unlike Dark, had no suspicion of his words. He almost always believed the ego.

“Tough crowd.” Mad murmured. “Anyway, I thought, ‘If Anti can teleport, and they were studying us, then what if they found out how to teleport themselves?’ So, I went back over the blueprints in my mind, and sure enough, Google’s left arm has a prototype teleporter in it. He didn’t kill him, he put them in here.” He held up the container. “I threw out the body bits, it was to messy.”

Like the bloody man could talk.

Dark threw out shadows, who snatched the container from Mad’s hands and brought it over. He opened it, and was greeted to a large amount of black energy.

And shining, in the bottom corner, was a soul.

Dark blinked harshly, willing his eyesight to clear. Why had it gone blurry? He must’ve use to much energy.

_ You’re crying, dumbass.  _ Mark mumbled somberly.  _ It’s called mourning.  _

**_I have nothing to mourn, Mark._ ** Dark said, barely paying attention to the soul.  **_It seems like neither of them are gone._ **

The amount of pure relief and happiness that flooded Mark’s soul made even Dark smile.

“We can’t make him drink it.” Mare was saying. “Then they’d be in stomach acid.”

“Just cut him open again.” Was Mad’s response. “Just make a cut and pour it in there.”

“It’s very hard for a soul to leave it’s body.” Dark joined. “That only happens in death. Once Sean’s soul left that body and went into the container, that became his new home. It would take something powerful to force it out.”

The other two quieted for a moment, before Mad took a pen and jammed it into Anti’s left eye.

It took all of Dark’s restraint to not butcher the crazed ego. Mad didn’t even look up at him, instead taking the container and pouring Anti’s energy back into his body. “Just because the soul can’t leave doesn’t mean Anti can’t as well.” Mad explained. “Once he’s up, he can teleport his host’s soul back to him.”

The plan was a loose one. Anti’s energy was putting up a hard fight, trying to stay with the soul that wasn’t budging from it’s spot. It took a good five minutes for only half of his energy to drip through his broken eye.

Anti gasped, flying up in a frenzy. He looked around wildly. “Wha-“

He clamped his mouth shut, grabbing the container from Mad and clutching it close to his chest. Once he had it, he spoke again. “What happened?”

“Hoped you could tell us.” Mare cleared his throat, wiping the drying blood from his neck. “Google blew your head off and teleported it away. Mad brought it back while Dark healed your body.”

Anti glanced at the two, before looking down into the container. “Why didn’t ya bring Jack back wit me?”

“We thought you could teleport him back into your mind.” Mad explained. “He seems stuck there, and we didn’t want to cause any damage.”

Anti was silent for a moment, before raising a hand. He maneuvered his hand into the container almost tenderly. Dark could see him incase the soul from where he sat, before he tried to move it. When it didn’t budge, he took it with both hands, covering it completely. After a moment, he moved his hands away. The soul was gone.

  
  


“You need new clothes.”

Mad and Anti had switched seats once they started driving again (and after they got a new car). Mad was still crazed, and because of that, he didn’t care about his health at all- which lead to Mare having to mother hen him.

“I quite like this look.” Mad said stubbornly, but since he had overused his telekinesis power, barely gotten a break, and then used it again to kill all of those men, along with some of his technology power, he was basically sleeping on his feet. The thing was, the ego wouldn’t let himself sleep in the state he was, which annoyed Mare to no end.

Dark wrinkled his nose in the front, just as annoyed. “That’s not an option.” He looked outside as he drove. “We’re coming up on a town in a few miles, you can get clothes there.”

Mad pouted like a child, yawning against his will, hands placed on his stomach. Mare frowned at that as well. Mad looked like a piece of shit… even without the blood. It looked like he was about collapse any second, his eyes were unfocused, he was  _ shaking. _ I mean, Anti just got his head blown off and he looks better then this guy, Christ!

“Get some rest, Mad.” Mare said. He would be better once he slept, once he gave his energy what it needed.

“I got some a few hours ago.” The ego argued like a toddler. Mare was losing his patience.

“Does it look like I care?” He gritted his teeth so he wouldn’t snap. “Get some  _ fucking  _ **_sleep._ ** ”

_ He’s overextended his abilities to ~~save~~ your  _ ~~_ life _ ~~ _.  _ His conscience said.  _ And all you’re doing is  _ ~~_ yelling _ ~~ _ at him. _

He was too angry to listen to it.

Mad blinked at him, startled by the change in voice. For a moment, his eyelids fluttered tiredly, and Mare thought he got him, before it was over. “This car isn’t comfortable enough.”

“Jaysus Christ.” Anti murmured, thoroughly tired of the ego. His voice had a tinge of guilt to it as well. He directed his question to Mare. “Can ye snap him outta it?”

“With what? Should I try beating him over the head? Sleeping snaps him out of it, and that’s why he won’t sleep!” Mare tried not to growl, but failed.

“Anti.” Dark instructed. “Go ahead and get him some new clothes.  _ Actual clothes, _ don’t let me see you got something stupid.”

Anti grinned, saluting. “Gotcha,  _ boss. _ ” He glitched away.

Mare turned back to Mad. “Can you  _ please at least  _ clean up your face and hands?”

Mad gave him a dull look. “And how do you suggest I do that?”

“I’m almost positive that it doesn’t take that much for you to take it off with telekinesis.”

Mad shrugged, “it wouldn’t matter anyway.” He held up a hand from his stomach, and Mare almost didn’t notice the  _ new drying blood the blood was like music for his eyes _ \- He pointed to his own stomach, which Mare could now see was still leaking blood. “I have to wait for this to stop first, or it’ll mean nothing.”

“ **_Yo-_ ** “ Mare had to stop speaking to control his voice. He didn’t need to deal with Dark too. “You’re still bleeding?! What the fuck, Mad?” He had overused his energy so much that it couldn’t heal his wounds immediately. That’s not good. “You need to rest!”

Dark hummed in agreement as he drove, seemingly listening in but not bothering to help anymore then he already has. Mare wrinkled his nose at the shadow.

It was then that Anti appeared, a pair of jeans, four shirts, and a jacket that looked suspiciously similar to one Mad’s host owns in his lap. He took a second to readjust, before throwing the outfit at Mare without a word.

Mare picked up the jacket, holding it up to Mad. “Put this on, at least.”

Mad pouted. “But then it’ll be covered in blood later.”

Mare’s frustration cracked, if only a little. “ **_Put on the fucking jacket, Mad._ ** ”

Mad didn’t look surprised, and blood didn’t leak from his ears either. Mare had controlled his voice enough for that. Instead, the ego just snatched the jacket and pulled it on, grumbling.

The thing was, he could barely do that much, that’s how weak he seemed to be. Mare didn’t like it, but he was too angry to notice as much. He looked towards the driver’s seat. “We can wash the blood off at a gas station.”

Because the rest of them had blood as well, Mare’s and Dark’s face and shirt are splattered in Anti’s blood, and Anti’s shirt has a bit as well.

The closest gas station was five minutes away, and Mare’s first words when he entered was kicking everyone out. Mare dragged Mad into one of the bathrooms, letting the other two take the other one. After he finished washing his face and changing shirts, he looked over at Mad, who wasn’t doing anything.

“Mad.” Mare gestured towards the sink, but Mad just shrugged. Somehow, he had regained a little bit of energy- enough to be on his feet- and the gunshot wound in his stomach was gone. “Wash up. Come on, stop acting like a three-year-old.”

Mad wrinkled his nose, causing the dry blood there to flake and crack. The ego clicked his fingers, and suddenly, the thick layer of blood covering him shot off, falling to the ground in clumps. Even with that, his face, hands, and clothes were all tinted red.

Mad must’ve understood that as well, as he moved over to the sink, turning the tap.

“See, not so hard.” Mare relaxed. Maybe now he could finally let go of all the frustration that the unhinged man had been giving him for he past few hours.

Maybe not, because  _ he wasn’t even washing up why did he even turn the faucet on? _

Mare growled, stomping over and grabbing his wrists, sticking them under the water. “Why can’t you just fucking cooperate?!”

Mad cupped his hands to gather water, before washing his face. Once he was done, the water droplets floated off his skin, before landing on the floor with a noise akin to a shower. Once he was completely done (which took around three minutes-three minutes of Mare waiting for an answer) he looked back at Mare. “Because I find it amusing when that pretty little face of yours scrunches up in annoyance.”

And that frustration popped. Almost without realizing it, Mare grabbed the mad ego by the throat, slamming him into the wall of the bathroom. The weird compliments, Mare was use to from the unhinged ones, but the deliberate poking? “You.  _ Find. This.  _ **_Funny?_ ** ”

Mad winced slightly, and in the back of Mare’s mind, he remembered that the ego was running on low battery- scratch low battery, he was on  _ 5 percent or less. _

Still, Mad just smiled his maniacal smile, eyes dancing as if thrilled of his accomplishment, thrilled that he had finally gotten a good reaction from the ego. “Ow.” He said, and Mare couldn’t tell if it actually had hurt at all. “You know, you do confuse me- you all do. Why waste away this perfect opportunity? We have control over these bodies, and you all want to give it up?”

Mare blinked, almost surprised at Mad’s change, his tone almost menacing. He sputtered as he spoke. “Our host’s souls deserve-“

“Cut it out!” Mad snapped. “Who cares? They’ve gotten a chance  _ to live! _ We haven’t! Nothing is stopping us from staying here. The government isn’t a problem, and I don’t know why we’re acting like it is!”

Mare snorted. “You think two demons, a mad scientist, and a siren can live an actual life? You know why we’re doing this, even if you won’t get it through your thick skull. Our host’s souls deserve to be with our host’s minds. I bet their bodies are dying as we speak.”

Mad had gotten increasingly upset over his words, probably because Mare had just thrown his idea into the trash. “We can just let their minds die.”

Inside Mad, he felt something prick at his energy curiously. The soul he carried knew when he would switch between sanity and the other, and usually left this Mad alone. Why he was trying to communicate now was a mystery to him.

He ignored him.

He had too, since Mare,  _ again,  _ grabbed his throat and slammed him into the wall. This time, he could feel blood on the back of his head. “You want to let our host’s minds go?” Mare asked quietly. “You out of everyone should know that their minds and souls are connected! Fuckin twat.”

He let go, again. Mad was too tired to move his legs away from the wall, too tired to have his arms check his head. He wasn’t too tired to control his face, so he calmed it’s features and spoke. “Souls don’t die, and they won’t go insane when the mind dies. I’ve thought about this-“

“Have you?” Mare interrupted. “Because the Mad that actually thinks knows how stupid of a plan that is! You, the unhinged version, who is running off of the last little bit of backup power you have, think you can think up a good plan, better than actual Mad?”

Mad growled. “ _ I am Mad- _ “

“ **_Shut up!_ ** ” Mare’s eyes flashed black. “ **_Don’t compare yourself to him! Don’t pretend that just because you share the energy, that you are him! You are not, and will never be, like him!”_ ** Mare stomped up to the ego, going nose to nose. “ **_You’re. not. good enough._ ** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I showed this pretty well, but no one likes the unhinged versions of Mad or Mare.  
> And Mad’s tired.   
> And oh my is Mare just done.  
> I’m slowly going down a really slow burning root for all four of them and it’s not going to show much but it’ll be there if you squint. I dunno why, can’t help myself.


	22. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people just have something special about them. In Mare’s case, he can’t get enough of a certain person’s blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I’m uploading another chapter right after the one I just did because I felt it appropriate. I read all the comments I get, and I just wanted to say thank you by not forgetting to post and only doing like 1-2 chapters a month. I try to answer most questions I read through the story, but at the end I might do a questionnaire of some type. Oh, and I wrote Anti’s backstory a little bit ago, so you’ll see it coming up soon!
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings?  
> Major Characters- I’m sorry Mare, Mare angst  
> Minor Characters- None

Mare had gotten Mad into their car, before turning, punching him squarely in the temple. Mad looked surprised for a single moment, before his eyes rolled back, and he slumped in his seat.

Mare shook his now bruising hand. Mad would thank him later, if he remembered any of it. Mare rarely ever did when he was unhinged, but he didn’t know if Mad was the same way.

Anti flashed back into the car moments later, arms full with random candy and chocolate. Fishing out a bag, he opened it, before looking into the back. He glanced at Mad, before arching an eyebrow at Mare. Mare grinned. “What?”

Anti grinned back, finishing the bag. “I ain’t said nothin.”

Dark didn’t ask either, when he made his way back to the car. All he did was make sure everyone was in the car, before starting it up and driving off. Anti’s mood chilled immediately, and Mare wondered why Dark was so quiet -cause that means he’s  _ pissed _ \- after the gas station stop. After what had happened with Anti losing half of his head, he gets, but now?

The quiet that took over their car wasn’t the comfortable silence Mare was used to- it was oppressive and sullen. If he didn’t think it’d be a waste of time, he’d open his door and jump out right now.

And, as if the beginning of his day wasn’t already terrible, it got worse.

“Mare.” Anti said a few hours later without looking back, glancing in the rearview. “Mad’s bleeding on the car window.”

Mare groaned slightly. In his anger, he had probably cracked the ego’s head open when he slammed him into the wall, and he was obviously too weak to heal it.

Before he realized how bad of an idea it was, he turned to look for himself.

_ Blood. _

The other ego looked to be asleep, with a slightly peaceful but mostly pained look on his face, which didn’t help his predicament at all. He was leaned against the window, and blood slowly fell down the length of it, splitting when it reach Mad’s resting shoulder.

Mare noticed all of that, but only as background noise since  _ he was in pain and there was blood and he had been waiting for this moment everyone else’s blood didn’t compare and he wanted he needed to see more and see more agony and hear more screams- _

“Mare.” Anti said.

He was staring. Blinking, he looked into the rearview, where both Anti and Dark were looking at him warily. He blinked, and he felt his eyes lose the darkness they were gaining.

_You aren’t ~~safe~~ to __be_ _around._ His conscience seemed to hiss.

He was hoping that the shade wasn’t noticeable, but if Dark’s look told him anything, he knew it was.  The shadow didn’t look upset. Maybe a little irritated, but nothing besides the twitch of one of his eyes. “Explain.” Was all he said.

Mare started to deny, saying nothing was wrong, when a shadow appeared from nowhere, landing on his cheek and pushing it so he’d be forced to look at the sleeping ego next to him.

_ Blood blood blood as pretty as a flower need more  _ **_blood-_ **

And his conscience was back. _Look at you. Finding ~~pleasure~~ in your friend’s ~~pain~~. __Monster._ _~~Abomination~~._ _Disgusting._

The shadow pushed him back to look at Dark. “Explain that.” His voice was bored and monotone, and Mare quickly decided that denying for any longer might cause him pain.

So, he told them about the simulation.

The day just kept on getting worse.

  
  


Anti listened quietly as Mare spoke, which he rarely ever did. He knew from Dark that he might have experienced a bit of the mind chip they were planning to use on them, but Mare never said what it was about.

Mare is different from Anti, but if  _ Anti  _ didn’t like the idea of torturing and murdering your closest friend while you had no control over yourself,  _ and  _ forced to  _ enjoy it all _ … then  _ no one  _ should like the idea.

The thing was, Mare wasn’t designed to feel that way towards Mad. Belief towards him and Mad usually held them as either good friends or worst enemies, with the occasional fuckbuddies shoved in (like he could talk he had to fight off  _ that _ belief  _ many _ times over- (he’s lost that battle several times as well)) the mix. Mare was designed to feel that way towards Mad’s host, but because they were identical (and basically one in the same) it transferred over.

“If I were to give you a knife right now.” Dark drawled, still calm and sounding uncaring. “What would you do?”

“I’d gut him like a fish.”

Anti turned around to look at the siren. The fact that he said it, and that his eyes sparkled slightly and his lips twitched up, made him recheck where he stored his knife.

“An’ if ta blood disappeared?” Anti asked.

Mare seemed to deflate then, as if just realizing what he said. “Probably not.”

“He was covered in blood earlier.” Dark pointed out.

“And I felt the want to do it earlier as well.” Mare retorted.

“But you could stop yourself then.” Dark replied.

Mare didn’t answer, only nodding.

“So him being asleep and vulnerable is what made the difference.” Dark said, still calm but slightly cold. Mare flinched, and Anti wanted to stop Dark, but they needed to know how much of a problem this might be in the future.

“As of late, tis been gettin worse.” Anti said, to clarify.

Mare nodded. “I think because the simulation is so closely linked to my core belief…” Mare trailed, before coming back. “It always comes back, whenever I start to go unhinged. They’ve become connected.”

That’s what happened before, when he started carving people up.

“Does Mad know?”

The question surprised everyone, but Dark didn’t seem to notice, still driving.

Mare shook his head. “No.”

Dark didn’t continue down that line, his silent answer obvious.  _ You’ll tell him. _

Anti, truly feeling uncomfortable for once, changed the subject slightly. “Ye said yer host could see it..?”

Mare flinched even harder, looking down. “He knows I didn’t do it… but he won’t talk to me…”

Anti silenced himself, even more uncomfortable than before. He had never really thought of the fact that his host might deliberately not talk to him, especially when he has nothing else to do stuck in his head. Jack was always so loud and expressive- he could feel the soul even now, twirling in bored circles and mumbling in some weird soul language he couldn’t understand without the mind’s translation.

If Jack had just stopped talking… Anti would be too surprised to even figure out why. 

Dark wasn’t speaking either, and Mare was just looking into his lap, a mix of shame and something else Anti couldn’t identify on his face.

Anti glanced outside, watching as they passed through patches of trees in some rural area. After they had found a new car, Dark had shadowed them something around eight miles directly south, far enough away to lose the government for a bit, but not far enough that Dark was overly tired.

Now, wherever they were, was experiencing a severe case of snow.

The ground was covered at least several feet deep in snow, enough that the occasional snow plow they saw pass was overrunned with work. The streets were pretty clear, but the side of the highway was a few feet higher in snow then the actual street.

Anti suddenly had the biggest urge to start something. “Dark, pull over.”

Surprisingly, the shadow did as asked without question or complaint. Zipping up his new coat, Anti climbed out of the car, tripping as he hit the snow and falling face forward towards it.

He had enough foresight to glitch away and out, landing in a sitting position on top of the car instead of in the snow. Grinning like it was all intentional, he hopped down, feet crunching in the snow.

The driver’s door open, and Dark stood up. “Anti, What are you doing?”

Anti had been bending down, but at that moment, he stood up, spinning around and hurling a snowball at the other ego. Anti saw a hint of surprise enter his eyes before it hit him in between his eyes.

Anti froze, surprised the ball hit the shadow at all.

As the leftover snow fell off of Dark’s face, a shadow fell over Anti. He didn’t get a chance to look up, because at that moment, a few bucketfuls of snow fell over his head. Yelling in surprise, the glitch fell, sinking into the snow.

It took a few seconds for him to pop back up, an indignant look on his face.

Dark was smiling, though. More of a smirk then anything, but it was there and genuine and it was the reason why Anti made and threw another snowball.

This one hit Mare, who got out of the car, confused at what was happening. The siren had a better reaction time then Dark, surprisingly, and brought his arms up to block it. He glared, wasting no time making his own snowball and hurling it at Anti.

Anti ducked, grabbing snow in both hands and shaping it with a single hand each. He threw one at Mare, before switching the other ball to his dominant hand and throwing it at Dark.

For a second, he thought Dark would just let it hit him, but a shadow sliced it into two pieces that flew past him. Anti pouted, about to complain about his use of powers when the dark ego raised his hand (which had an impressively large snowball in it) and chucking it at him.

He got a facefull of snow.

He could hear Mare burst out in a fit of giggles, and he could hear him yelp after a moment as well, the sound of a snowball connecting to skin a moment earlier.

Wiping the snow away from his face, Anti let out a gleeful, genuine laugh. Damn, he really likes snow!

He was just about to aim for Mare again when said ego paused, raising an arm. “I hear something.” He said, suddenly on guard. “Sounds like helicopter blades.”

And their fun was over.

It only took them a moment to be back on the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i’ve been a little Mad/Mare focused and yeah I don’t regret. Mare feels guilty, and Mad’s in a spot, basically dead to the world. And while he’s struggling to not take a dirt nap, we get a snowball fight! I’ll just pat myself on the back for that good writing...  
> They all need hugs, but right now, Mare needs the biggest hug.


	23. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleeps nice. Get your sleep, kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve almost finished writing the story!
> 
> No warnings. If you’ve made it this far, I bet you don’t even need warnings really. I’ll still give em.

“I’m going to transport us to the city line.” Dark said, breaking the hour long silence. “Mare, secure Mad.”

Mare did as told, barely paying attention to the shadows engulfing the car. After his stomach finished it’s flip, the shadows melted away and suddenly there was a city. It was hard to tell the time, with the sky so cloudy and snow had started to fall again. 

Anti took a good look at Dark. His jaw was set, but his eyes were dull and tired. He didn’t know how much sleep Dark’s been getting, but he could easily guess it wasn’t enough. “I can drive, ye should rest.”

Dark didn’t bother answering him. Anti knew why, he wasn’t the most responsible driver. But Dark was losing energy fast, and they didn’t need two dead on feet egos.

Anti looked around, before pointing at what looked like a resort hotel. “Mare, can you get us a room there?”

“Easily.”

  
  


Three room keys (to the best room they had, no less) later, they went back out to the car.

Dark gave the car a once over. “Anti, why don’t you park this car at another hotel.”

“Smart.” Anti replied with a grin, moving to the driver seat. “Wha bout sleepin beauty in ta back?”

“I’ll carry him to the room.” Mare volunteered. At the looks of doubt he got, he crossed his arms. “It’ll be fine.”

“Based on wha happened a few hours ago, I’m sceptical.” Anti murmured.

_ They don’t  _ ~~_ trust _ ~~ _ you.  _ His conscience sneered.  _ They don’t trust you, around your own ~~best~~ friend. _

Mare ignored his conscience and the conscious egos, moving to Mad’s side of the car and opening the door, picking the sleeping ego up easily. The fact that he was still asleep, after only a measly punch no less, was slightly worrying.

He backed away from the car, before locking eyes with Dark. “Don’t worry about something that doesn’t need to be worried about.” He wasn’t looking at Mad for a reason. 

Dark narrowed his own eyes, walking over. “I’m not worried. If I was, we’d be having a  **_very different_ ** conversation right now.”

The shadow grabbed his shoulder, and they were gone.

Mare set Mad down on one of the beds they had. This place was a resort, and each room had two separate bedrooms instead of one room with beds in it.

Mare was going to leave after he put Mad down. He didn’t trust himself enough at the moment, and he didn’t want to tempt fate.

But then he notice something. Mad was still bleeding.

Pushing all bad thoughts from his head, he stopped in his motion of setting Mad down. The genius wouldn’t appreciate waking up on a bloody bed.

He found the wound, and he carded his hand through the hair just above the cut on his head. He took a breath, before pushing some of his energy onto Mad.

He couldn’t give him his own energy, but he could repair his body with his own energy. Slowly but surely, he could see dark tendrils of energy emerge from the wound, latching together and healing itself.

He took a moment to wash out the bits of blood left on his head (he did cause it, it was only fair) before setting him down.

He made it to the doorframe before sighing. He might’ve been mad at the unhinged version of Mad, but he had still gone to far. He had injured the ego when he was to low on energy to defend himself, and it was too close to his soul.

_ You  _ ~~_ endanger _ ~~ _ him more than you  _ ~~_ protect _ ~~ _ him. _

Mare growled at himself, closing the door with a harsh thud.

  
  


Anti’s ego was growing and he felt fuckin fantastic.

He had decided to walk back to the resort, and the action won him two different numbers from pretty girls. So when he glitched up to where he could feel the ego’s energy, the grin on his face wasn’t forced.

“It’s the outfit.” Mare had said when he told him what brought his attitude up. “If they knew what was under it, they’d scream.”

Anti cackled and flipped him off. True, his shirt was extra bloody, but he had taken precautions in the outfit he had newly stolen.

A dark, navy blue trench coat covered the stains on his shirt, and he wore a grey scarf to cover the collar. He still had his black pants and black boats, and the whole outfit contrasted greatly with his pale basically porcelain lookin skin. He was pretty sure agent Septic wore his hair short, but since it’s been months and the only cut it’s gotten was a messy one from Google, (you know, when he lost half of his head…) it had since looked like his own host’s hairstyle. But even with that, he had grabbed a grey beanie on the way out, so only a portion of hair in the front was seeable anyway. He guessed the look was attractive towards other humans. Maybe if he actually had a sex drive towards humans, he’d call them up.

“Dark’s sleeping.” Mare said when Anti asked. There was a little connector room in between the two bedrooms in the suite, with a tv and a small couch. Against the back wall there was a microwave and mini fridge too, but Mare had already ordered room service- and told them to make it quick. “So is Mad.”

It was unneeded information, Anti had only been gone for half an hour, Mad wouldn’t of woken up so quickly. Nevertheless, he nodded and didn’t speak of it. He did want to at least have a look at the genius (the imagine of him cut open had appeared in his mind) but the food had arrived right then and Anti thought the chicken parmesan (who orders that at a hotel?) looked divine.

Anti himself wasn’t tired, but his host’s soul seemed to be and so with a little coxing he got it to sleep, falling to sleep soon after.

  
  


He woke up a hour later, feeling more tired then he had going to sleep. It seemed like everyone needed the rest, since Mare had also taken to resting (somehow) on a uncomfortable looking chair. The room service laid sprawled out on the table in front of him, mostly eaten.

He blinked. What had woken him up?

Moments later, one of the side doors opened, and Dark grumbled as he walked out, fixing his suit. “You aren’t going to get the door?”

“Mmh?” Mare jerked awake. “Someone’s” he yawned. “At the door?”

Sure enough, he heard a loud knock at the door moments later.

Anti rolled off of the couch he slept on, popping joints as he walked towards the door. He removed his beanie, running a hand through his hair before replacing it with the hat. Lastly, he rubbed his eyes for a good moment before opening the door. You look more terrifying when you're wide awake.

He looked outside. Abruptly, he closed the door.

“Who was it?” Dark asked.

Anti yawned, still tired even after the short wake up he tried to do. He needed coffee before he could deal with this. “Oh, it’s Google.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all my comments.  
> Minnowshadow why are you so funny?
> 
> Also, big chunk of chapters up ahead. I must do this so a certain someone doesn’t flip anymore tables. That is all.


	24. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 700+ hits and 60+ kudos I’m shook?!?!
> 
> Warnings?  
> Angst.

It seemed that Anti was still half asleep, because it took a few moments of complete silence before his eyes finally widened. “Oh shite-“

Dark only had time to roll his eyes before the door opened, and Google along with a group of 5 or 6 men strolled into the room.

Dark finished adjusting his suit. Only a few people? This would be a lot easier then he expected.

Google didn’t make to move or shoot, he just scanned around the room until his eyes landed on Dark. “I request permission to speak with you. Peacefully.”

He wasn’t expecting that.

“If you want to talk peacefully,” Dark started. “Then why bring armed men?”

“Protection.” Google responded dully. “My superiors are afraid of the possibility of subject number 13.1 hacking and stealing information from my database. These officials are equipped with the same neutralization weapon I have. I hope that physical conflict can be avoided, as I only want to talk.”

He really wasn’t expecting this today.

But might as well hear what the robot has to say. “Alright, let's talk.” He gestured towards the room he just came from, to talk in a more private area. Google seemed glad with the idea. “Anti, don’t kill anyone.” He said as he started to leave. “You too, Mare.”

The glitch grumbled, plopping down on the couch. One of the men pointed a gun in his general direction, but the ego only snarled at it, before folding his arms and pouting like a child.

Mare was looking at him, though, his eyes shifting towards the still closed door at the other side of the room. Gesturing towards Mad. Dark shook his head, before entering the empty room and closing the door behind Google.

“So, double of mine, what do you want?”

  
  


Mare felt only slightly upset. Anti had 4 guns trained on him, whereas he only had 2. Granted, he hadn’t done anything to grant him any guns, but Anti had summoned his knife, and was throwing it up in the air and catching it again.

It wasn’t like they could really harm the men either. They all wore padded, probably bulletproof (and definitely knife proof) vests and pants, along with full helmets and ear mufflers or filters on. Mare couldn’t do a damn thing but tackle them.

And then he’d be out.

~~_ Useless _ ~~ _ like always. _

“Stop that.”

Mare froze. It seemed like one of the men was finally over Anti’s game of ‘scare the crap outta the officials’. Mare wasn’t afraid of the man, but not many could tell Anti what to do and still live to see the day.

Only one could do it whenever and not have consequences. Only two could do it occasionally. But those three were all egos, who had a connection through hosts and months in captivity together. This man did not.

Anti just glanced at the man, before continuing his knife tossing.

“I said sto-“

A sharp twang cut through the air, along with a startled yelp. Anti’s knife had hit the wall inches away from the talking official. Anti cackled for a moment, glitching briefly, before summoning the knife back to his hand and tossing it around like before.

Mare’s two guns went to one.

“I don’t know if you don’t understand!” The man’s voice rose. “But if we feel threatened in anyway, we’re allowed to knock both of you out and bring your asses back in chains! You’ve killed to many good men, men with families and lives to feel like you can do anything you want!”

“Keep talkin, why don’ ye?” Anti snarked. “But Do ye even know wha weh are?”

“Dirty experiments.” The man spat.

Anti laughed, a great big billowing laugh. He fell back on the couch, kicking his feet in amusement as his form cracked and glitched around. “No ye dumb arse! Ta so called ‘good men’ ye talkin about kidnapped us, not created us! Tey took us from our own home and stuffed us in tis bodies! Call tem saints all ye want, but when ye see ‘em in hell, ye finally know wat tey really did!”

“You think we’ll believe what a cold blooded murderer tells us? Someone who’s killed hundreds of innocents?”

“He’s telling the truth though…” Mare murmured.

He should’ve kept his mouth shut.

“You shut up!” The man almost roared, and he was surprised Dark hadn’t come out yet, to see what was going on. “You weave lies and manipulate anyone with working ears! He might just kill people, but you, you are so much worse! Forcing innocent people to do what you don’t have the balls yourself to do! You hide behind an innocent facade, when you yourself are so, so much worse. How many have you killed? How many have you had others kill for you?”

_ He’s  _ ~~_ right _ ~~ _ you know… _ his conscience whispered.  _ You are a  _ ~~_ coward _ ~~ _. You are a  _ ~~_ killer _ ~~ _. A  _ ~~_ murderer _ ~~ _. You’re going to  _ ~~_ hell _ ~~ _ already… why not  _ _ really show _ _ them what you can do? _

Mare growled lowly, anger starting to thrum through his veins. He felt his eyes go black as he stood up. Four guns. He now had four guns on him.

Suddenly, the guns seemed to freeze in place.  The men all jumped as their guns shot into the air, floating for a few seconds before snapping in half. It didn’t stop there, though, as the panels on the high tech guns ripped open, and the wires inside the gun seemed to tear themselves out, before the guns fell unceremoniously to the floor.

The door to where Mad was sleeping slammed open, and a very ruffled looking Mad stood at the door frame, still holding the door knob. “Will you  _ keep it down?  _ **_I am trying tO SLEEP!_ ** ”

He slammed the door back closed, and Mare had to cough to hold in his laughter. The men’s ashen faces were just to much for him in that moment.

Anti had no such problems with not keeping a face, and fell into a fit of giggles. “Oh, jaysus christ! Yer so scared of a half asleep Mad! Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost!” 

They look like they’re a ghost themselves.

  
  


“So, double of mine, what do you want?”

“I’ve set up a sound muffler in this room, so my officials cannot hear us.” Google said, not answering his question.

“Good to know.” Dark said gruffly, pushing the words away. “What do you want?”

This wasn’t his Google. He needed to keep that in mind.

“I cannot give you that information.” Google responded. “It goes against my protocol.”

Dark sighed, realizing the game he was about to have to play. Google couldn’t speak badly about his superiors, but he could say he couldn’t give that information. An annoying game of No and I cannot give you that information was coming up.

Dark took a seat on the edge of the bed, clasping his knees with his hands. “Okay Google.”

The robot froze.

“What is your primary objective?”

“Primary objective is to help the supreme government in recapturing escaped convicts.”

Dark hummed. They were convicts to the outside world. “Secondary objective?”

“Secondary objective is to release my stolen energy back to its original whole.”

Dark blinked, that was a lot easier than he expected. “Is a part of my energy used to power you?” He had already guessed, but he wanted confirmation.

“I cannot give you that information.” Google said, glitching slightly, a frown marring his face. Yes, then.

“Are you being forced to chase us?” Dark leaned back slightly on the bed, unconcerned.

“I cannot give you that information.” He repeated.

“If you didn’t have to, would you be chasing us?”

“No.” Google said, and his eyes, no matter how much Dark knew they were just regular robotic, held such a familiar spark. He was at a lost for words for a moment.

Licking his lips, he went off track. “Are you just a part of my energy, or are you the core energy of Google?” He needed to know if whatever they did severed one of the core egos from his energy. He had already lost Wilford (and if his energy was even healing, he didn’t know for sure) he didn’t want to lose Google too. They were the two largest Iplier egos after him.

He needed them. Not as much as he use to, but he needed them.

His question, thankfully, didn’t need to be answered as a yes or no. “I am Google’s energy, but his core is still with you. It is why I am this… unupgraded version.” Google glitched, showing off what he meant. “I do not have much time, I must get back onto topic… I’ve been looking for a loophole to what I need to tell you, and I finally found it.”

“Then tell me.” Dark huffed. He shouldn’t be so rude to the ego, he hasn’t truly spoken to another one of Mark’s egos in years.

“Instead of taking the blocked road, we go the clear sidewalk.” Google said. “We find the trail easily, since our prey extrudes such strong auras. Our prey is right in front of me.”

Dark was silent for a moment, before holding out his hand. Google, as if knowing what he was asking for, printed out the words on a small slip of paper, handing it to Dark before deleting his memory of ever doing that.

Dark skimmed the paper.  _ Instead of taking the blocked road, we go the clear sidewalk. We find the trail easily, since our prey extrudes such strong auras. Our prey is right in front of me. _ He had a good guess at what it meant, but he wanted to confer with Mad before, even if it was just to bounce off ideas.

Having partners (he could call them friends but he’s to stubborn sometimes-) really did help out in the long run.

He didn’t say anything else about it, since Google was probably deleting and rewriting this conversation anyway. “Next time we see each other.” Dark paused, to think about how to end this. “I’ll take back what I gave to you.”

Google smiled then, something real that reminded Dark to much of the Google he knew. “Thank you for allowing us a peaceful conversation.” He droned. “I hope you consider giving up peacefully afterwards of this point, to save us from further bloodshed.”

Dark knew their talk was over, and so he wiped any slightly pleasant look from his face, standing up and joining Google as he opened his door.

It took most of his will to not react. “Who did this?”

The men were all cowarding in a corner, their guns destroyed in a pile in the middle of the room. Mare was sprawled over a chair, a smug shit eating grin on his face as he glanced at the men. Anti was juggling several different knives that Dark didn’t want to know where he got them from. Every few seconds, he would throw his own knife at the group of men, missing by a few feet, before calling it back to him.

“Anti,” Dark started, noticing as Mare jabbed a thumb towards the closed doors. That made sense. “Stop acting like a child.”

Anti smirked. “I was bored.”

Google ignored them all, marching towards the doors. “We are done. Let’s go, gentlemen.”

The men scrambled from their spot, making their way to the guns, when Dark wrapped a shadow around them. When they looked up at him, he smiled a dark smile. “I  **_suggest_ ** you  **_leave_ ** these here.”

The men gave out a sound that was akin to a whimper, before scampering out of the room. Dark sighed, unwrapping his shadows from the guns. Mad would have a field day with them, and even if they could mass produce these guns, he still wanted to take as many of them away from them as possible. Maybe Mad could make something like Kevlar, but for it’s effects. Dark’s positive he knows what it does to an ego, so he’d be the most likely to stop it from happening.

The door closed, and Dark sunk into a seat, rubbing his eyes. He had woken up twenty minutes ago, this was to much.

“What were ye talkin bout?” Anti, ever the nosy, started, suddenly uninterested with his knives. “In tere longer than I thought ye be.”

“He gave me a riddle.” Dark said. “That’s all.”

Mare shifted, looking up to bore into Dark’s eyes. He blinked, before looking back up to the ceiling. “That’s a lie.”

“And you can jus tell?” Anti arched an eyebrow.

Mare shrugged. “I’ve always been able to tell.”

And that just added another layer of shit Dark didn’t want to deal with. He had known whenever Dark lied, and just never said anything?

Sometimes he wished he was just back up in Mark’s head, friendless and alone again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mare and Dark, I should feel bad but I don’t. I based Mad off myself in this chapter. More on his next chapter.   
> Anti’s Anti. I feel like no more explanation needed.


	25. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third Chapter I posted today. 4 more on the way, I think. Give or take. I hope this makes up for my awful uploading schedule.
> 
> Warnings?  
> Mildly graphic wound details.  
> Killing

Mad was tired. Tired and sore and weak. Oh, so,  _ so, _ weak.

He hated it.

He remembers the adrenaline from a free fall, he remembers reaching out for something and  _ pain white hot pain it hurts it’s to heavy oh my the pain- _

Mad groaned, slipping back into the soft hotel bed and pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. He was left with large black spots in his vision, but he was focusing a little bit better.

He remembers a blur after that. Blood, he remembers. Pushing his powers passed his maximum capacity. Almost getting himself killed (actually truly dead-) by doing so. Something happened afterwards, and the darkened, purple bruises on his neck was telling. He only ever gets threatened with asphyxiation when he’s unhinged.

Oh… yes… he remembers now.

His unhinged persona basically strolled in while he was weak, taking control and keeping him held down while it explored.

And by exploring, he means annoying Mare. Unhinged Mad has some kinda thing with annoying Mare specifically. Mare knew it, and could normally deal with it. Mad wondered why he couldn’t this time.

If there was a time to deal with it, this would be the time.

Mad glanced at himself. He had changed at some point, and he shedded the jacket to see the damage. Yellowish purple bruises littered his skin, along with some small sharp cuts. Little coves in his skin told him that he got shot multiple times. He didn’t want to see his face.

Mad groaned again, reliving the pain again. Using his powers to hold up the car was pushing his limits and then some. He had to directly use his energy to make it work. Then afterwards, he used his powers several more times. Taking so much of his energy in one sitting…

He’s lucky he didn’t put himself in a coma. Or worse, use up all his energy until he died.

Would that even work? Theory for another day.

He doesn’t know how long he was sleeping, but using his powers to destroy those guns caused his entire body to tingle and burn. He could feel his unhinged version wiggling wherever it was, trying to escape.

No one needed that.

Mad shivered, memories of passed moments like that coming into his head. Both he and Mare’s unhinged versions were violent, but they were also just plain dicks. Anti and Dark could deal with them, but they’d rather decapitate or maim them then actually help.

Great team, they are.

Mad pushed away an unneeded memory (Mare’s unhinged version had kissed him- ugh (but he can’t talk cause his unhinged version did the same (they don’t talk about it))) and curled back up in the blankets. His entire body was burning, his energy was small, like a dying fire. It had all latched onto his host’s soul, which burned as bright as normal.

A full day of sleep, and he should be in an okay state. His thoughts right now lead to a week for recovery, but that was to long to not use his powers. He was hopeing to be at the vortex in a week.

He needed to be able to use his powers without incapacitating himself.

A thought snapped so suddenly into his head that he almost fell off the bed.

His unhinged version used it. He used it without passing out.

All he needed to know was how.

He brought his knees up to his chest, wrapping an arm around them while laying the other over them. Resting his head in the crook of his resting arm, he squeezed his eyes shut, hard.

**_Think. Remember._ **

Little snippets of what happened ran through his mind. He was woken up. They were surrounded, like before at Steph’s. The crippled mind saw the connection and made a ruckus. He was barely paying attention, it was so  _ loud. _ Then Anti was gone and maybe just the fact that one of the three people he considers friends was gone must’ve made something snap and suddenly he wasn’t there anymore.

This would be the hard part to remember.

Anti was gone. He was gone. His hands were covered in the glitch’s blood. Him, his unhinged version, rubbed the blood over his face (ugh, he really hated himself sometimes) and laughed. He turned and opened the car door. He was weak, he stumbled out of the car and did some type of limp out of the shadow.

He surprised someone. They were close to him so he snapped their neck. That was the first time he used his powers. How?

He had had all guns trained to him. Google was charging up something. He was bent over the man, taking his goggles. He put them on as he stood up.

Google had recharged, and Mad had just seemed to notice. He took a hand out of his pocket, waving it to his side. Google jolted, and his robotic hand was ripped from his body, making his shot go into the sky. The second time he used his powers.

He was shot several times after that, but he stayed standing. It got to the fifth shot when they all stopped, looking confused. After another second, their arms shifted. Suddenly, they were pointing at each other.

Mad knew they were panicked, they were speaking but he couldn’t hear. Third time his powers were used when he didn’t have powers to drain.

Mad gave off one crackling laugh, before moving again. The men’s fingers went to the trigger, and they all fired.

Most of them died right there. Google was shot many times over. There was a group he didn’t get to, and they shot at him some more. He threw their guns away and smiled. What happened afterwards was a montage of snapping necks, dismemberment, pulling vertebrae from bodies, and at one point crushing a head. Mad moved passed that part, uninterested. His unhinged self was a messy killer.

Afterwards, he had stopped, looking around. He went in a big circle, as if looking for something. After a moment, he tore a door away from a car, picking up some kind of bucket before looking inside.

Dark energy. What happened here?

He was walking back to the shadows and Mad stopped remembering, trying to soothe the headache he had gotten away.

He still didn’t know how to use his powers when he had already drained them.

And he didn’t get to think much on it, since Dark barged into the room (but in a Dark-like way so he just opened the door and stepped in) and came to the edge of the bed.

He was probably mad about him causing a ruckus outside. Mad, for once, didn’t care at all. “I have no regrets.”

“Neither do I.” Dark drawled back, before handing him a piece of paper. “Google visited. He found it important enough to give us this information, but he isn’t allowed to say it outright.”

“So he put it in a riddle.” Mad finished, taking the paper. “I was wondering when the robot would switch sides. He a mole now?”

“Something of the sort.” Dark murmured as Mad read. ‘ _ Instead of taking the blocked road, we go the clear sidewalk. We find the trail easily, since our prey extrudes such strong auras. Our prey is right in front of me.’ _

“So.” Mad looked up. “They can find us from our energy signatures?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Dark murmured, taking a seat on the desk chair by the bed. “Instead of tracking us down how they usually would, they follow our energy. That’s how they find us so quickly.”

“If we keep our auras hidden, then it’ll be much harder to track us.” Mad said. “But we’d also have to completely stop using our powers. Not even to heal ourselves.”

“Well, you’re already halfway there.” Dark commented, looking over him. He looked like a wreck, no trying to deny it. And he never but his jacket back on to hide it. But Dark looked more upset by his obvious pain then amused. “Who caused this?”

Mad shrugged, unfamiliar and unprepared to deal with this protective kind of Dark. “The guards in the clearing, mostly. I think the neck marks are courtesy of Mare, but I probably deserved them.” He said matter of factly. “We all know how much of a bitch I am unhinged.”

“Hypocritical of him, though. Don’t you think?” Dark murmured.

“I have done the same to him.” Mad replied airily. “We are dark egos, we can’t always control our anger. Especially not after what had just happened.”

Dark nodded, like he understood, before standing up, taking the note with him. “I’ll let you get more sleep. Repair yourself as much as possible while you can. We’ll stay here another day, but then we’re moving- and any power usage after that will have to stop.” He paused on his way to the door. “You know what that means?”

Mad nodded. “Keep myself in check.”

“We don’t need either you or Mare becoming unhinged.” Dark said, before murmuring. “Especially Mare.”

Mad, though, heard it. “Why Mare? Aren’t I the one who always flaunts my powers?”

With Dark’s hand on the doorknob, he said. “You need to talk with him before we leave, too. You need to know.”

He closed the door, and Mad wondered if it was about the late distance he’s been feeling between himself and the Siren.

  
  
  


Mare knew what was happening when he entered Mad’s room. It had been at least 20 hours since Dark left his room, and the room had stayed silent since. Even with the time of rest, Mad didn’t look like he healed even one cut.

_ Look at what you  _ ~~_ helped _ ~~ _ cause. _ His conscience hissed.

Mare felt the guilt swarm over him. Attacking his best friend at his lowest point, even if he was poking and prodding him, was awful.

Mare closed the door behind him, before moving over to the side of the bed and sitting down. Mad was reading a book he got from somewhere, looking quite normal excepted for the injuries.

He didn’t respond when Mare placed his own hand on his wrist, pushing some of his own energy onto him. Mad’s energy, weak and fetal, didn’t resist, and Mare watched with some guilty bliss as the bruises from his neck disappeared, as well as the other wounds littering his body.

Mare didn’t realize Mad was looking at him until he had finished. He snatched his hand away quickly. “Sorry.”

“Nah.” Mad droned, and Mare knew he was upset. “Who needs consent nowadays?” He quipped. “Less of my own energy being used.”

Mare didn’t have a response to that, so instead he said. “Dark sent me in here to tell you we’re leaving in a few hours.”

“That’s not why he sent you in here.”

Something about his tone froze Mare, and he swallowed thickly. Mad was looking at him curiously, like he was a mutated toad. Mare hated when he did that. “I’ve been told that there is, in fact, a reason for you to be avoiding me.” Mad continued. “And I think it has something to do with what happened back in that aircraft.”

Mare stood up. “This is not the time to be bringing up the past.” 

He made to move away, but Mad, much stronger then he was anticipating, grabbed his arm, pulling him back down. “Dark said we had to talk about whatever it is you’re hiding from me.”

_ He’s going to learn the  _ ~~_ truth _ ~~ _. _ His conscience crackled.  _ And he’s going to  _ ~~_ hate _ ~~ _ you! _

Mare could feel the panic rising. He was going to lose the one person in life he knew he could fully trust, no matter what. He’s going to lose him and then he’ll fall off the deep end and try to  _ kill- _

“Mare.” Said ego snapped his head towards Mad. His eyes were soft, and a playful smile flitted across his face. “Whatever it is, I promise I’ll forgive you.”

“You say that now.” Mare grumbled, and his conscience was repeating his words. He’ll hate him. “Don’t make a promise you won’t keep.”

Mad’s laugh actually surprised Mare. “You could say you were trying to kill me this entire time and I’d just laugh and say you’re not the first one.”

Mare looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time. “It’s not you, Mad.” Mare said. “It’s your host.” 

The grin fell off of Mad’s face. Mare prepared for the worst. “What?”

“It’s your host, Mad.” Mare repeated. “My beliefs been screaming at me to gut him like fish for a while now.” He looked at his hands. “And I don’t want to, but I don’t think I’ll have a choice.”

_ Here it comes. _ His conscience said.  _ The  _ ~~_ hatred _ ~~ _ is near. _

They were both surprised when Mad laughed. It was a great, big laugh, that was so much like his host’s laugh that it was startling. And the weirdest part was… Mare didn’t feel any murderous intent towards the sound. 

“I honestly doubt you could harm one hair on Matthew’s head.” Mad wiped a tear from his eye. “Is this what you were so worried about? I knew from the beginning that you could potentially be a threat. I also knew that it would never happen, that  _ you _ would never let it happen.” A dark look crossed over his face. “Who put it in your mind that it could?”

Mare was oh so happy, happy that Mad trusted him, wasn’t yelling at him. But he would be, it was inevitable. “The reality chips Dark was talking about? I think they tested out a version of them on me. I… I… I  _ tortured you, Mad. I tortured you and  _ **_I enjoyed it!_ ** ”

Mad blinked. “Doesn’t look like you're enjoying it now.”

Mare’s never been more confused. Mad wasn’t worried at all. He didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

Mad sighed. “Mare, you would never, and will never, harm my host. Me?” He shrugged. “I’m a prick, so I’m fair game. My host? You’re more against it then I am.” He paused for a second, looking away. “Everyone here knows your backstory, just as everyone knows Dark’s and Anti’s. Theirs is cut and dry, they aren’t supposed to like their host. Well, look at them. The perfect opportunity to be rid of their host, and they’re doing everything they can to make sure it doesn’t happen. I don’t doubt that you can do the same.”

_ He’s lying. _ His conscience said.  _ He’s  _ ~~_ pretending _ ~~ _ not to  _ _ hate _ _ you. _

Mad frowned, reaching forward and tapping his forehead. “What’s wrong? Those gears seem to be moving way to fast in your head, Mare.”

Mare was hardly listening, the voice in his head ranting and raving. “My conscience is screaming at me.” He said offhandedly.

Mad looked confused. “Conscience?”

“Yeah.” Mare answered, as the voice suddenly went quiet. “It’s gotten worst… ever since the mind chip…”

Mad suddenly looked very, very, serious. He put a hand on each of Mare’s shoulders. “Mare, egos can’t have a conscience.” He stated. “Whatever that is, it is not a conscience.”

And it all seemed to click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been wanting them to coming together after I split them apart for a while now. One of my favorite scenes is in next chapter!


	26. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heal friendships by bringing up awkward things you both don’t regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah and blame the new video Damien that Mark just posted for these bunch of updates! I wrote a part that has to do with it like two weeks ago and now it just looks like I didn’t do research! Salty.
> 
> Warnings?

Mare didn’t waste time, diving into his own head. He landed in Nate’s created music room.

His host sat at a piano, not playing anything. A man who looked exactly like him sat next to him, whispered something into his ear. By what he heard, Nate looked horrified.

Mare felt anger course through him. The thing he thought was his conscience this entire time… was nothing more then the crippled mind of Nate’s counterpart.

Stomping up, he grabbed the other man by the neck, whipping him away from Nate. Nate himself jumped up, gasping as if he was just drowning.

He looked confused.  _ Wait… wait… Mare? _ He looked at the other, before something dawned in his eyes.  _ You're not Mare! _

Mare held the man up, until he looked straight at him.  **_You just love pretending to be someone you’re not, don’t you?_ ** He squeezed slightly, relishing in his gasping chokes.  **_I hope you had your fill of fun. That was the last of it._ ** He looked towards Nate.  **_Are you okay?_ **

Nate swallowed, before nodding.  _ Much better than before. _

Mare left as quickly as possible. Nate probably didn’t want to talk to him. And he had to deal with the mind who’s been whispering in his ear for much to long. He didn’t give it time to plea, and he felt to much pleasure in the sound of it breaking even more, the sound of it dying.

When he opened his eyes, Mad was much too close for comfort. He jerked back, but Mad didn’t seem to worry. “Is everything okay?” He asked.

Mare nodded, falling face first across the bed as the exhaustion of everything caught up to him. “That changed everything.” He murmured, the noise being smothered by the blankets.

Mad crossed his legs up under him, as to not be in Mare’s way. “Now that you’ve gotten the idiotic voice out of your head, do you really believe that you would hurt me or my host in any fatal way?”

“I’m afraid that I won’t have a choice.” Mare mumbled. He heard Mad sigh, heard him shift, and then suddenly there was a body laying over his back, forming a cross using the two of them. Mare yelled. “Mad, What the fuck?”

“I’m not moving until you grow into that sense I know you have locked up somewhere.” Mad stated. “I’m not going to have you keep being guilty over nothing.”

“I do have a reason to feel guilty.” Mare retorted.

“Oh? Please do tell.” Mad responded, placing his head in his hands.

Mare didn’t really realize he spoke until it was too late. “You were knocked out and bleeding a couple days ago. If it wasn’t for Anti and Dark, I would’ve chopped you up.”

Mad hummed for a moment. “Feel better now?”

“What-“ Mare shifted, moving from laying on his stomach to laying on his back. That meant that he and Mad were stomach to stomach but he had stopped caring. “I can’t tell if you're stupid or if you think you're that much more powerful than me! I could’ve killed you!”

“Dark wouldn’t of let you in here alone with me while I could’ve been sleeping if he was actually truly concerned with you cutting me up.” Mad said, and that… did make sense. “Did you actually start to harm me, or did you think of doing it?”

Mare’s silence said it all, and Mad groaned. “Come on Mare, you know we can’t control our thoughts. Anti and Dark have probably had millions of thoughts of killing their host. Have they acting on any of them? I trust you, Mare. You’re not going to hurt us.”

Mare was going to cry. He didn’t deserve his trust. He didn’t deserve it and this wasn’t fair to Mad and-

“Hey, remember what happened last time we were in this kind of position?” Mad said with a grin, and he was trying to change the conversation and Mare knew he shouldn’t allow it but…

“We agreed we’d never speak of that again.” Mare said with a fake glare, pushing Mad up and off of him.

Mad laughed, taking the seat he had before against the bed rest. “At least let me give you my compliments.” Mad winked, and he was good at getting Mare off track. Off of his dark thoughts. “You’re a great kisser.”

Mare grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. He laughed as it hit him in the face, before bursting into giggles at the redness of Mare’s face. “What happened to not talking about it?!”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about when you started it!” Mad was cackling now. “We never said anything about my time!”

“I’m pretty sure we agreed for it to encompass both of those times.” Mare grumbled. “Dude, we’re lucky as fuck that you messed with the cameras back at that government base. Do you realize how many tests we would have to go through if they caught us?” Mare could imagine it- ‘These monsters have feelings? We must test this!’

“Not my fault your unhinged version just couldn’t resist me.” Mad grinned, and it felt normal. Mare felt normal. It was… nice. “And what was  _ I _ to try and stop him? I did just say, you’re an excellent kisser. Made me want more.”

Mare glared. “I wish I could say the same to you.”

“Hey!”

They paused for a second, before both erupted into a fit of giggles.

Outside of the room, Dark smiled. “Are they good again?” Anti asked.

Dark couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the laughing was a good enough indicator. “Seems to be. Finally.”

Anti scoffed. “Don’t pretend like ye aren’t happy bout it.”

Dark let a smile flirt across his face. “I’m not. I am happy about it.” He paused. “Contrary to what you think, Anti, I do sometimes care.”

  
  
  


Dark was driving again.

Everything went to shit pretty quickly afterwards.

They had all piled into the car, besides Anti, who apparently wanted to use his powers one more time before he needed to stop. He glitched into the car, several bags of snacks crumbled in his arms. He ignored everyone’s looks as he popped a bag open, grabbing a handful and sticking it in his impossibly large mouth.

“Don’t they know this car?” Mare said after a moment, trying to fill the car with something else then Anti’s crunches. 

“Probably.” Mad answered. “But I just changed it’s licenses plates, so we’ll be fine for a bit.” He raised his hands in a placid gesture when Mare glared at him. “I have hands. I know how to use them. I don’t always need my powers.” He started grumbling under his breath. Whatever he said made Mare crack a smile.

Anti glanced at him, a smile flitting on his features as well. Dark understood why, but he hid his own smile.

They got to an intersection when it all went downhill.

He, a law abiding citizen, waited for his light to turn, before going. He went across, and halfway through, a car almost ran into them.

“Damn.” Dark swore quietly, swerving out of the way while checking the other car. It was a truck, and the people in it seemed normal. Just bad drivers. “Imbeciles.”

The truck was turning onto their street as well, a quieter one that was more of a side road then a main one. The truck was a little behind them on another lane.

Mare looked through his window at them, squinting slightly. “They kinda look familia-“

In a move to acrobatic for any car, let alone a truck, it skidded to the side of their own car, the long end of it crashing into their own car.

Dark’s head banged into something as their car lost control. He blinked, clearing his vision as the car continued to spin. 

The truck’s passenger was pointing a gun at them. There were two bullets in there air, moving so… slow.

Only one was aimed at him, right in between the eyes. He blinked again, watching it get closer. A bullet doesn’t hurt.

Wait.

Oh, yeah.

He needed to protect the soul that the bullet would most likely scewer. Oh, he didn’t have that much time.

And everything dissolved into nothing.

He woke up in a broken car. Blood ran down his face, but his wound was gone. He blinked sluggishly, looking around. Anti was still out, the others wer-

Wait, where were they?

He sighed, blinking some more to clear his head. He wasn’t thinking straight, he knew that much. He wasn’t hurt, so he had healed while he was unconscious. His host’s soul was fine, snug and completely in the dark about what had happened.

His suit sleeve brushed off the dry blood running down his face. He doesn’t think he was out for to long. He hopes, at least.

Standing up in the reckage of the car, he took in his surroundings. The road was still empty, and no one had helped them. Someone would’ve checked on them, he knows that crash was loud.

He swung out an arm, hitting Anti in the side of the face. The glitch yelped, waking up almost immediately. He had a splotch of blood on the side of his face, running down behind his ear.

He looked around, confusion clear in his eyes. “Ta fuck?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Dark murmured, transporting himself outside of the wreck. He had already healed himself, the governments know that they’re there. And they were still in the city, so they hadn’t gone far. And he was severely upset (they had to get a new car and he just had an assassination attempt on him-) so he didn’t care much.

Anti seemed to get that too, and he glitched next to the shadow moments later. He looked over the wreck. “Tat was unwarranted.” He wrinkled his nose. “And where’s Mad and Mare?”

Dark shrugged. “I have no clue.”

  
  
  


Mare wasn’t asleep. He hadn’t died and his body wasn’t in need of healing. It was more like his body had been put to sleep through means not of his own, and his energy couldn’t fix it. He could still feel his body through, and it felt uncomfortable. But he couldn’t deal with that in his situation, and his host’s soul was okay. So... he waited.

When he could finally force his eyes open, there was nothing to see. It was dark.

A voice that he knew was Mad’s spoke. “Well,  _ this _ is a situation I wasn’t expecting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, they made up! I love Mad bringing up the past kiss because that would totally put Mare in some type of state like that, especially because it was his unhinged version that did it, not himself. And that summary up there? Yeah, bet you can guess what I mean by that lol.  
> And boy, out of the frying pan and into the fire with Mad and Mare. Can’t catch a break *wink wonk*


	27. Extra II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a prologue to every story, an origin to every character, and a person who built every building.  
> There is also a person who knocked them all down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like this was needed, even though I wasn’t going to write it. And I love this summary for... nostalgic reasons.

_When the first semi clear thought a being has is centered around a pleasure filling thought of gouging someone’s eyes out, then you know that something's wrong._

_Anti was fully formed from the beginning, or so he likes to say. Really, he wasn’t, but that time period was so short that he hardly remembers it. He never created his own personality, never had a thought that wasn’t connected to his own belief. He never had to deal with that._

_And Anti in himself never dealt with the pain of blistering, chaotic energy, fueled with different beliefs clashing together. He had it, he very much had it, but his core belief was madness and chaos and pain so everything else fit in perfectly with him. And if it didn’t, his core belief hid it quite well._

_So yes, Anti was only Anti. He didn’t have a personality to call his own, and he didn't want one. He was fine just the way he was._

_And then he met the others._

_There were others in this dark grey room Anti called his home. They’ve been there since he can remember, but they weren’t fully formed, still half dark energy. Anti’s energy twitched at seeing them, pathetically vulnerable. He could feel slight whips of pain somewhere in his body, and he instinctively knew that they were not his own pain. In fact, they were these little worms of an ego’s pain._

_Anti would be annoyed if he didn’t derive pleasure from pain. But he did, and he didn’t want the others to ever stop feeling pain. He was riding blissfully along because of it._

_Strangely, the others became fully formed quickly after he had. That meant the pain he had been rolling in dried out, and if that wasn’t enough reason to cause his own, then what else was?_

_He only made it a foot into their directions before something stopped him. Something tugged deep in his energy, connecting to it, mostly likely. Suddenly, he was filled with warmth, he was filled with warmth and love and hope and purity and_ **_innocence-_ **

_He hated it._

_Ripping whatever it was away from him, he moved towards one of them. The one he glared at had a mop of green hair, a cat mask pulled up onto his forehead as the ego wiped his face._

_And the ego’s face… it brought Anti so much_ **_malice_ ** _and_ **_hate_ ** _and Anti_ **_loved every second of it._ **

_The man turned and waved once at him. ‘Yo.’_

_Anti stopped, blinking as if just brought out of a trance. He was just relishing in daydreams of blood and screams, and now…_

_Anti barely managed a nod, before turning around and settling in his corner again. What the fuck was that?_

  


_‘I feel like you are sick.’ The ego in front of him patted his chest. “Let me look, I am a certified doctar.” His eyes gleamed like he knew a joke no one else did._

_Anti himself was… confused, to say the least. Of course he looked sick, he was just carving smiley faces into his bicep!_ **_Don’t you have anything better to do then bug me?_ **

_‘No.’ The ego answered curtly. ‘There is nothing else to do.’ He paused, fingers tapping his own chin. ‘Do you mind filling us in on what this place is?’_

_Anti scoffed._ **_And how would I know?_ **

_The man blinked. “You were the first ego, we thought you would have the knowledge we need.”_

_Anti could tell the truth, tell them that they had been here longer than him, but Anti loved having something to hold over someone else. Instead, he said,_ **_There isn’t much to know here in the first place._ ** _He gestured around._ **_We’re trapped in a room. Every now and then, we’re channeled. Besides that, nothing._ **

_And it was boring. Anti didn’t like talking to the others, so he never had anything to entertain himself with, unless it was using his own body as a canvas. He had been channeled before, but the person doing it, his host, brought out so much carnal_ **_rage_ ** _in him that he didn’t even both with communicating with the man._

_A thought popped into his head just then. His lips curled into a smile._

_That’d be fun._

  


**_Hey~_ **

_His host jumped out of his chair, spewing cuss words as he looked around, panicked. After seeing nothing, he calmed, going back to sit in his chair, apologizing softly as his eyes darted around._

**_Listen to me~_ **

_His host paused. “I’ll be right back.” He paused the recording, before looking around, panic etching his face. “Who the fuck is in my house?!”_

**_Not your house._ ** _Anti purred._ **_I’m in your mind, Jackiboy._ **

_Anti didn’t know exactly how channeling worked, but if Jack could get to him, he could get to Jack. It took awhile to get there, but he had nothing else to do anyway._

_“What the-“ His host paused, and the horror in his voice put a sliver of pleasure in Anti’s spine. “Anti?!”_

_Anti cackled, making it loud enough to boom through Jack’s head._ **_Who else~_ ** _He started._ **_Be careful which what you make, the results might not always be ideal~_ **

_His host was starting to hyperventilate, and that… was concerning. Why it was, Anti didn’t know, but for some reason, that scratched him… the wrong way. He thought seeing it would bring him happiness, but instead, he just felt… uncomfortable. Ashamed._

_Anti sighed._ **_Dude… c_ ** _alm down. I’m not-‘ he grimaced. ‘I’m not going to do anything.’_

_His host heard, but he didn’t seem to trust whatever he said, which made sense. He placed a hand on his desk to steady himself. “Get- get OUT!”_

_Anti was slammed back, away from the forefront of his host’s mind and back into the grey room. He groaned, rubbing his back._

_What was that?_

  


_His host was asleep some few weeks later when Anti felt that same tug he had felt before. Like before, he tried to cut off the attachment, but he had no such luck this time. The pull was insistent, and strong._

_Anti blinked, and he realized he was in a dream. It was a city, and he could see his host swinging around like Spider Man, even though, for some reason, his dream had him in a tank top and his flamingo shorts._

_Anti wondered why he was here, when suddenly, at the peak of his swing. His host was suddenly falling, plummeting, to the ground._

_Oh._

_He watched for a few moments, savoring the screams, when he felt his host start to wake around him. He’d probably wake when he hit the ground._

_And… Anti didn’t want that. Why did he not want that?_

_Against his better judgement, he flicked his fingers. The scene changed, taking on his host’s bedroom. He grunted at his outfit again, changing it to some jeans and a shirt as well._

_His host ran forward as he stopped falling, hitting the bed and flopping on it by accident. He got up, breathing quickly. “Wha-“_

**_Hey, Jackaboy._ ** _Anti couldn’t help himself, his host’s fear was almost cute to see. Adorable, more like it._

_What? No, his host’s fear gave him happiness and pleasure, it didn’t make him coo!_

_“Ah- Anti-“ he scrambled backwards. “What- What do you- you want?”_

_The stuttering was more annoying then anything else._ **_Give me a break._ ** _He growled._ **_I’m the one that just saved your pathetic arse._ **

_Jack blinked. “You- you did?” It was quiet as Jack took in that information. “Thank- Thank you.”_

_Anti… wasn’t expecting that. He thought his host would just kick him out again._ **_Uh,_ ** _no problem.’ Anti rubbed the back of his head, slightly awkward._

_Jack tilted his head. “What?”_

**_I just…_ ** _I wasn’t expecting you to not… yell at me.’ And Anti was_ **_happy_ ** _that he didn’t yell at him, that they were talking like civilized people. That thing deep inside of him, that thing that tugged at his being And was annoying… it was happy and it was radiating warmth. He… liked that warmth. Why?_

_Jack now looked sheepish, and embarrassed. “Yeah… sorry about before. I talked to someone else… who might understand this. He told me to give you a chance.”_

_Anti blinked. That made him happier then it should’ve. ‘Okay.’_

_Jack still looked wary. “But I’m still watching you.”_

_That made Anti laugh. Around them, the dream was disappearing. He was waking up. With a wave, he stated._ **_It’d be stupid for you not too~_ ** _’_

  


_‘Want to see a magic trick?’_

**_Yeah, sure_ ** _, let’s see it.’_

  


_He was trying to get Jackieboy Man to fly around their enclosed space when another, new, ball of energy appeared. Anti paused in his pestering as he stared. That same, deep tugging, beckoned him closer. He felt connected to it, like it was kin. It was the same tug Anti felt when he looked at the other egos._

_The energy was small, but grew quickly. In the same month, a new ego had become fully formed, and the guy laughed and shot things and cried about his wife and kids that left him._

_And somehow it was_ **_Anti_ ** _who turned into the group therapist. Out of all the better options, Chase always came to him when his belief got him down. Anti took that responsibility smuggly, but seriously as well._

_He secretly called him his little brother._

_He started to wonder why he liked his own belief so much._

  


_There was a time when Anti was channeled, and he decided to bring Chase with him. He didn’t know if he could, exactly, but he had a feeling and he always went with those._

**_Your body’s weak!_ ** _Quiet literally, are you okay?’_

_His host did look like he just got out of a bad cold. Jack glared at his computer, Anti could see it through the monitor reflection._

_“I’m still sick, fuck off.” He mumbled. “Now, please just, shut up. I have to record.’_

_Chase perked up next to him. ‘Oh, are you recording for your own channel? That reminds me, I gotta get some videos ready for Bro Average- even though it’s not real.’_

_Anti patted his shoulder as Jack startled. “Chase? You there too?”_

_‘Dude Perfect, right here!’ Chase chuckled, obviously trying to lighten their host’s mood. ‘I saw that you need Anti, and I decided to hop along for the ride.’_

_“Happy to see you getting chummy with the other egos- hey wait a second.” Jack blinked. “The other egos are real too? Chase- wait- CHASE!”_

_The host wobbled around in his chair, still clearly out of it from either meds or the sickness. He tumbled out of his chair, kicking his mouse and keyboard as he fought to gain some sort of traction where there was none to be found. Anti cackled as their host tried to right themselves._

**_They’ve been here since you created them._ ** _Anti laughed._

_Jack was still for a moment, before something else seemed to come to him. “Mind if I add more?”_

_And Anti really didn’t. In fact, he wanted more._

  


_JJ joined them so quickly that they all thought he would be the main ego._

_They all knew that it would happen eventually. One of the egos would start to merge with the others, and the last ego would be a plethora of all of them combined. They weren’t worried, they’d be even closer than before._

_And JJ showed up so quickly and formed within the week that they were sure he’d be the one. JJ didn’t talk, at least, not much. His energy created words to be read around him. If he ever found it annoying, he didn’t bring it up. In fact, he was just a ball of joy._

_But he wasn’t the main ego, that much was clear._

_But nobody cared. The septic egos were all happy with their life. The room the were in seemed to be brighter and bigger, and warmer._

_It felt a little weak._

_Anti thought he could break it._

  


_And he could._

  


_One day, he, along with the others, broke through the room that held them for so long. Their energy all converged towards Jack’s mind, because there wasn’t much to see otherwise. Only organs and other body parts, which they all didn’t really want to touch, even Anti. It was the same tugging that made him not want his host to feel discomfort._

_They made a new home in the mindscape, one with a room for everyone and plenty of extra space. One of the egos, though no one would take the credit (Anti knew), created a few pets as well, two dogs and a cat that wandered around. It was domestic and fluffy and Anti should’ve_ **_hated it but he_ ** _didn’t._

_He loved it, he really did. He loved the other egos, his family. He loved his host, he loved the new pets, and he might be stuck in a body he can’t control, but he has a family (that he loves and loves him) and he didn’t need anything else._

_And Anti… was happy. He was full. Not of malice or rage or bloodlust, but soft, warm, loving, happiness._

_He didn’t need his belief. He had his own, in the energy of those around him. Those who really know him._

_‘Hey, Anti?’ Chase asked. ‘You okay? You’ve been staring at nothing for a while now.’_

_Anti looked at him, before smiling. ‘Yeah… I’m fine. Great, actually. Just finally.’ He paused. ‘Got my head on straight.’_

_Chase grinned. ‘We’ve been waiting, never thought it would happen, though.’ He laughed._

_Chase went to hug him. He gladly recuperated._

_And Chase was gone._

  


_‘It was me all along.’ Anti said quietly. ‘I- I didn’t know!’_

_The others looked at him, and where was the hate? Where was the loathing? There was pity and sympathy and hurt, but where were those eyes blazing in hate?_

_Marvin stood up to move towards him, when Anti backed up. ‘Please… don’t touch me.’_

_Marvin, thankfully, stopped. ‘Are you sure?’_

_Anti nodded. ‘I got one of the minor egos without realizing it… and… Chase.’_

_He could hold the silence in his hand, he could feel the weight of it. He could feel it sit on his shoulders._

_‘We knew this was going to happen, Anti.’ Scneep’s accent, strangely, was completely gone. ‘We might lose physical form, but we will still be together. We’ll just be stronger- we’ll be able to protect Jack better. We’ll be stronger together.’_

_Anti couldn’t take it. He started backing up towards the door._

_‘We can still talk to each other, Anti.’ Jackieboy Man started trying to soothe him. ‘They can still communicate to you, right?’_

_Anti nodded slowly. ‘I hear them talking to each other right now.’_

_‘Then it’s even better then how we are now!’ Jackieboy exclaimed. ‘We’ll never be alone!’_

_Without another word, Anti ran out of the room, out of the house, out of the mindscape._

  


_He was back with the soul. There was some metaphysical grey floor that he could stand on, so he wasted no time curling up on the ground, knees to his chest as he shook and sobbed._

_He could hear the cores of Chase and the other ego humming to each other. Happy. Warm. Present._

_He couldn’t understand them._

_They didn’t talk to him, they couldn’t. They gave up after a while._

_Because to them he was_ **_Anti_ ** _, big,_ **_bad_ ** _, Anti._

 _All he was to them was his belief. And they_ **_hated_ ** _his belief._

_His host’s soul watched on in sad warmth as he sobbed._

_Why couldn’t he understand them?_

  


_He stayed away from the others once he returned. The cat was his only companion, the dogs brought back to many memories._

_Chase created the dogs after his own belief._

_The dogs disappeared one day. No one seemed to notice, as if they were never there in the first place._

_The cat was still there though, always hanging up by his shelves, to far to touch. A male cat as black as midnight._

  


_‘We’ll be with you.’ The other egos tried to reassure him through his doorway. He had stayed locked in his room since Chase had gone. ‘We won’t be silent! We’ll keep you company once we go!’_

_‘I know.’ Anti lied through the door. ‘We’ll talk a ton once we merge. I just... don’t want it to happen so fast.’_

_And the other egos laughed and said their goodbyes as they turned in for the night, excited to be reunited with Chase again._

_And as they left, Anti could feel Chase’s core ooze hostility._

_Towards him._

  


_Anti didn’t go into a daze when Jack fell asleep. He thought it was because the soul wanted him to save his host from nightmares. Maybe it’s so he's always ready to protect them._

_So he knew he hadn’t dazed when he blinked, and suddenly he wasn’t alone._

_ I know. _

_The letters formed around JJ in a lazy but quick fashion, and they waited for Anti to finish reading before fluttering to the floor and disappearing._

_‘What?’ Anti asked, hopeing that it wasn’t what he knew it was._

_ I know whats happening to the egos you absorb. _ _His words were accusing, but his eyes were soft, because that’s what JJ was. He was soft and good and pure and…_

_And everything Anti wasn’t._

_Anti looked down. ‘Sorry about lying.’_

_ I know why you are. _ _He assured._ _ It’s selfless, truly. I want you to know that it won’t go unnoticed. I won’t forget you. _

_And Anti wanted to believe, but he couldn’t bring himself to. ‘Sure.’ He said dejectedly._

_ I won’t be able to talk to you. _ _Words and letters swirled around him in a flurry._ _ But I will be there. I’ll make sure that their thoughts towards you aren’t harsh. No one deserves that. _

**_Anti deserves that. Anti sliced his host’s throat. Anti possessed the other egos. Anti is bad, Anti is evil, Anti is…_ **

_Anti is surrounded by family, yet he still feels so… so… lonely._

  


_All of the minor and not fully formed egos ambushed him one day. They didn’t attack him, but they all converged, itching to touch him, to merge with him._

_By the end, there were only 4 others left._

_JJ walked into the kitchen to find him shaking in the corner, crying as cores of the egos settled within him humming warily at him, like they haven’t known each other since they were created._

_And it was painful. It was painful to watch and feel this happening. He regretted ever loving the other ego’s pain in the beginning. This was all karma, wasn’t it? For everything he’s ever done wrong. He_ **_deserves_ ** _this._

_JJ moved over to him, sitting down against the counter across from him. He didn’t get any closer, but he was there and he wasn’t leaving._

_At least, not yet._

_And that’s all that Anti needed._

_At least, for the moment._

  


_Anti wondered when JJ told the others. He doesn’t know, but at some point, they stopped coming to his doors to try to reassure him, and the looks they gave him were no longer happy._

_They are looked so hurt._

_He wished they weren’t told. Now they were trying to elongate something they wanted, because of Anti._

_He didn’t_ **_deserve_ ** _this._

_He started staying with the soul whenever his host was awake. Something about the soul drew him to it. He’d hear whispers of encouragement come from it. T wasn’t the soul, but he could pretend it was. He could pretend that the soul wasn’t taking his family from him._

_The soul continued to shine, like it didn’t even know he was there._

_Anti started to wonder if it actually did know._

  


_‘I’m sorry.’_

_The good doctar’s hand had some kind of green substance on it. The substance glitched about, taking the doctar’s hand with it. ‘I’m sorry, but it hurts.’ The doctar looked so ashamed of himself. Scneeplestein looked down. ‘Doing this will make the pain-‘_

_Anti took his hand before he could finish. The doctar looked up in surprise before he was gone._

_Anti wished the last face the doctar saw of him wasn’t tear streaked._

_But he wasn’t going to have his family suffer because of him._

_He ignored the others, slamming the door to his bedroom closed behind him._

_The little midnight black cat sat at the windowsill, letting light blanket it’s silky fur. Anti wondered who created the cat, Jackieboy, Marvin, or JJ. It wasn’t him, and they were the last ones._

_Anti didn’t pet the cat, though. Maybe he was afraid of making it disappear, or maybe he thought the little animal looked peaceful as it was, and didn’t want to disturb it._

_But it was a constant in his life, and he loved the cat for it._

_He didn’t name it though. He had some ideas, but for some reason, he couldn’t pick a single name._

  


_Marvin and Jackieboy wear masks and gloves and are always covered, head to toe. JJ’s the same but in a different way. Nevertheless, the two never have skin showing unless they want to._

_That’s why Anti never realized it._

_He walked into the living room one day to find them both spasming. Marvin’s mask had fallen off, leaving only one blue eye and a strip of pale skin in a sea of green substance. Jackieboy’s last blue eye was half green._

_But even in pain, they both tried to move away from Anti as he came to release them from their pain._

_‘We don’t want to leave you alone.’ One of them said._

_‘I’ll have Jack.’ Anti responded, stilling moving closer._

_‘You’ll push him away.’_

_‘Well, it’s_ **_none of your concern now!_ **

_Anti darted forward, catching them both in a tackle. They were gone before they hit the ground, leaving Anti to take all of the force, but he did notice something._

_They had wrapped their arms around him before they left. They said goodbye._

_The cat appeared on the top of the couch, eyes piercing into Anti’s energy. It was still here._

_JJ._

_Anti found him in his room, wearing only a shirt and pants. There wasn’t a sign of the green on him. Letters swirled around him._

_Do you want to get it over with._ _He started. _ _Or would you like me to stay a little longer?_

_He made it seem like it was a chore, staying here with him. Anti wasn’t the one who wanted him here! He could leave!_

_Anti lunged forward, aiming to grab him, but suddenly, JJ was behind him. Words floated into view._ _ Calm down, I won’t leave you like this. _

_‘You’ll leave anyway!’ Anti screamed. ‘So why_ **_does it MATTER?! NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU’LL STAY, YOU’LL LEAVE ME TOO!_ **

_They all leave. No matter how long they wait, how much they fight the pain, they all leave._

_Everyone always leaves. No matter what they say. Human or ego._

_No one is immortal. No one stays._

_Unless_ _you_ ** _make_** _them_ ** _._**

_But Anti won’t do that. They deserve to be with everyone else. They don’t need the pain he can cause. They don’t need to remember him._

_If I join them, I’ll just be around those who don’t remember me, the real me. _ _JJ started._ _I’ll remember, but they won’t. I understand you, in that way._

_But he didn’t understand. No one can understand, Anti knows that. JJ was making excuses. For him._

_His arm whipped around to find JJ, and his hand caught fabric. Turning, he pulled the shirt (and JJ) towards him._

_When they were chest to chest, Anti connected their foreheads. ‘Go.’ He whispered. ‘Go be happy.’_

_JJ looked shocked, but the face changed to soft resignation. Then… he spoke. ‘I won’t forget you.’_

_‘I know you won’t.’ There was a tone of sadness._

_‘I’ll make them remember.’_

_‘What’s the point?’ Anti asked lowly, watching the green substance spread across JJ’s skin. It went slower than usual, like it knew they were talking. ‘All it will do is remind them of my pain. I don’t want that for them.’_

_‘You’ve already given up so much.’ JJ’s voice was exactly like he was. Happy and soft and pure. ‘I won’t let you give this up as well.’_

_Anti laughed softly. ‘I already have. Now, go on, and try to forget me.’_

_He was disappearing, Anti saw it happening. But he wasn’t done yet._

_He moved back, placing his hat back on his head. A monocle appeared on his face, and he gave a mock bow. One large, bold word formed, flickering like a flame above him as he spoke. ‘Never.’_

_And he was gone. He left him._

_Above him, the word stayed for a few more moments, before sizzling out._ _Never. _

_The cat mewled behind him._

_The cat was still there._

  


_He made it the first day by just forgetting. He laid in his bed in a daze. He wasn’t a person, an ego, nothing. He was just him, and that was nothing._

_That lasted him a week._

_He was channeled a bit later. “You’re quiet, Anti.” Jack said as he set something up. “I got a cool idea that the fans will love. I’m going full out for this.”_

_Jack. His host. Jack created him. Jack made him this way._

_He was the reason why the cores of the egos festered inside of him. Why they disliked him. Why they were hostile._

_He’s why they couldn’t stay._

_He’s why they all left him._

_“Anti?”_

**_Does it look like I want to talk to you?_ ** _Anti spat._ **_Keep doing what you're doing, and keep your mouth shut while you're doing it, or I’ll make that first Halloween trick we did together_ ** **_ real _ ** **_._ **

_Jack clamped his mouth shut, and Anti could feel his terror. He could feel the soul’s terror. He… didn’t like it._

_It was weird. Jack himself was mortal, his soul immortal._

_His soul couldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t let it. His host’s soul was only his, and no one else could take it._

_He cut off the channel, making his way down to the soul in question. His soul. His host’s soul. The one he was made to protect. The one who did all of this to him. The one he was laying claim to right now._

_The one who was whispering to him in several different voices that wasn’t the soul’s._

_The only thing that couldn’t leave him._

_It was_ **_his._ **

_The cat rubbed against his ankle. How did it get down here? And why was it touching him? It’s never done that before._

_Anti knelt down to it’s level. The cat sat, small snout poking up towards the hand he was extending towards him. He sniffed the slightly curled hand, before bumping it with his nose._

_Anti smiled slightly, petting it behind its ear. The cat’s golden eyes bore holes into his head._

_It was gone moments later._

_The cat left him._

_The cat… was_ **_mortal_ ** _._

  


_Anti didn’t try making up with Jack. He was sure his host knew he hadn't meant anything by it, and that he was just in a mood, but Jack didn’t speak to him when he was channel next. Or the next time, for that matter._

_Anti was fine with it. He had his soul. The soul could never leave him._

_Who needs something so_ **_fragile_ ** _? Something that could_ **_break_ ** _so_ **_easily_ ** _? Something_ **_mortal_ ** _?_

_Befriending something mortal was just a waste of time. Loving something mortal was just pain waiting to happen. Why even bother with an attachment that won’t last?_

_Anti won’t make that mistake ever again. The only thing worth looking for was something immortal. Something that couldn’t leave him._

_But he was the only one. He absorbed the others. All he had was himself, and his soul._

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_And then he met Dark._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you like that angst with a side of rice?
> 
> Note time!  
> Cat- The cat was an ego I made up. He’s an accumulation of all the animals/pets Jack has ever given a voice for. That’s why Anti couldn’t pick a single name, because he was actually many different beings. I named him Mr. Midnight, after Fran Bow.  
> JJ- JJ to Anti was like Wilford to Dark, just the roles switched. JJ was special like Wilford was, but they were both created just to help the ‘main’ egos help protect their hosts. On a happy note, by the time the main story happens, JJ got all the other cores of the egos to at least slightly remember who Anti was.  
> It was a little hard, making different origin stories. I wasn’t even going to write it, in the first place. Dark’s past was supposed to show how lonely he was (because he didn’t reach out to make friends) and that he’s not doing it now in our story because he’s learned from his mistake. Anti’s different, because he had a family and he lost it. He’s learning how to make a new one.  
> Hope you enjoyed!


	28. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trust your gut. Or your energy, if you don’t have one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We get to delve into Mare’s more... passive powers now. Cool.
> 
> Warnings?  
> Mad Mare. And I don’t mean the ego Mad, I mean the emotion mad. Mare is MAD.

He wasn’t expecting the situation either.

He was sitting in a chair, his wrists bound behind him. It was some type of rope, but for some reason he couldn’t break or rip it. That… wasn’t right.

“Mare.” He could hear Mad. “Now’s not the time to be sleepy.”

Mad’s words sounded urgent, but his tone didn’t. Mare had always been good at figuring out someone’s true emotions by their tone of voice, it’s his talent. And right now, it was telling him something was up.

“Where are we?” Mare jerked his hands backwards, with limited success. “Where are the others?”

“No clue.” Mad said, and that sounded… right. Mad would be frustrated not to know something, but his voice had a tilt of… excitement? Malice? No…

Mare cursed himself slightly. He never really honed this skill of his, and now he was straining his ears to get it. 

There. It had a hint of smugness. Satisfaction. Mare only really finds that, especially in a negative situation, for when said person doesn’t give a full account. When said person isn’t giving the whole truth.

Mare doubted he actually knew where they were, so they must know where the others were. He raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent on that topic. He couldn’t see, so maybe that’s why Mad was lying, even though he knew Mare could tell. “Do you see a light switch or something?”

He was quiet for a moment, then. “Yeah, gimme a second…”

The switch flipped on and… where were they?

It was a concrete room, from floor to ceiling. It looked like it was trying to be an outdated insane alyssum room, but the entire thing made Mare itchy. It felt as if his eyes and his energy were processing two different things.

Mad stood by the wall, arms crossed. He wasn’t tied up, so Mare was confused as to why he hadn’t been freed yet. “Mad.” He said pointedly, nodding to his wrists. “Going to help me out anytime soon?”

Mad frowned. “Yeah, let me just walk over to you-“ he gestured to his leg, which had a thick chain around it. “-while I’m chained to the wall.”

The bit of panic that spiked his voice was barely noticeable. Mare barely noticed that fact, since  _ that chain wasn’t there before. He knows it wasn’t. _

“Then telekinesis me out of this.” He growled. “And I’ll get you out!”

“I already tried!” This was the only line his said so far that sounded completely genuine, as did the annoyance his voice held. “Something shocked me every time I tried!” He leaned forward, eyes showing genuine fear. “And it  **_actually_ ** hurts!”

Well, that’s not good.

And it should be impossible.

But something made him not want to try. There was an itch in the back of his head saying, no screaming, don’t.

So Mare went back to his suspicions. “You don’t know where the others are.”

“No.” Mad said, voice reverting back to irritated… and he was telling the truth. “I don’t.”

Mare blinked, confused. “And you don’t know where we are.”

“No, I don’t.” He repeated, and there, that was it. “I already told you-“

“But why are you lying?” Mare interuppted, mouth forming a thin smirk. “You know you can’t lie to me, Mad, without me knowing.” Mad knew it. He still did it at some points, but that’s when he didn’t want to talk about it and Mare respected his wishes.

Mad froze, before repeating, with slight panic, Mare caught, his words. “I don’t know-“

“You  **_do_ ** know.” Mare growled. “What’s going on, Mad?”

Mad stuttered a bit, and… that was strange. Mad rarely stuttered. After a moment, he calmed. “Mare.” He tried to imitate the growl Mare had just produced, but he was far off. “We’re trapped in a fucking concrete box and you're worried about a lie?”

There was something so… very wrong about this. Mare’s energy seemed to burn with a desire, his energy and his eyes were yelling two different things at him once more.

Frowning, Mare reached out with his own energy, staring at Mad while he slowly inched his aura further. Mad didn’t even seem to notice.

Mad seemed to expect an answer, but when he didn’t get one, he continued. “You are! Come on, man!”

Mare just squinted some more, pushing his aura out just enough for it to brush Mad’s hand. It recoiled almost as quickly as Mare himself did.

“Who are you?”

Mad blinked, surprised. “Pardon?”

“ _ Who the fuck are you? _ ” Mare repeated, anger seeping in his words. “ _ Cause I  _ **_know you’re not Mad._ ** ”

  
  
  
  


“Tey aren’t answerin still?”

“No.” Dark answered, his voice rumbling in annoyance. He turned the phone around in his hands several times, inspecting it. He wished Mad had given him a more thorough explanation of everything it could do, since he knew the ego had upgraded it recently. It now looked and worked more like a regular phone, but it still had no battery, and no one but an ego could use it.

Anti crossed his arms. “What did tey get themselves into now?” He mumbled, looking at the wreckage. They stood in an alleyway adjacent to the street they crashed in, but still no one had shown up to inspect the damaged vehicle.

Dark had no answer, and if he did, he wouldn’t of had time to voice it, since his phone beeped at that moment. In a single moment, he had his phone open.

_ ‘GPS.’ _

Dark raised an eyebrow. Anti looked over his shoulder, brows furrowing at Mad’s short message. After a moment, he replied. ‘ _ What happened?’ _

It took a few moments.  _ ‘Can’t talk. Hurry.’ _

By this point Dark was already moving, bringing Anti with him into the shadows. He didn’t move them far, just into the nearest car, which someone had stupidly left their keys in. Dark started the car before texting back. ‘ _ Problem?’ _

‘ _ Location. Power usage. Captive. _ ’

Dark wrinkled his nose, his head still a little to foggy for him to want to decode what the other ego meant. Instead, he went through the small amount of apps his phone held and found the one labeled gps. The map of Europe popped up on screen, as did a pinpoint to show where he was. Another pinpoint for Mad appeared.

In this world’s Portugal, right outside of America.

How had they moved so quickly, in such little time?

Anti was still reading over his shoulder, so he handed him the phone, before gunning it down the road. He was going way to much above the speed limit, but he could go into the shadows if he needed to, and using his powers didn’t seem like the most important thing right now.

Because from what Mad had texted and Dark could infer, he had more pressing matters.

“Fill me in, Dark.” Anti said after a moment. “What’s goin threw yer head?”

“To much for how little I know.” Dark admitted lowly. “I… have some ideas.”

“Ten spill em.”

Dark sighed. “Mad would’ve answered if he could, no matter the situation. To not be able to would mean he quiet literally couldn’t bring the phone up to his mouth to speak.”

Anti blinked, realization dawning on his features. “But he can control technology, which would allow him ta send us a message. And tha’ would give ‘im an energy signature.”

“And when Google traces it back to him, so close to the vortex, they’ll have no reason not to believe that’s where we’re heading.” Dark said, nodding as he jerked the wheel, skirting out of the city while barely missing cars on the way. “So, we need to make it there before they triple security… and become a major pain in my neck.”

Anti looked at him, easily seeing through his words, and no matter how much Dark lies to himself, he could see it too. He wasn’t as irritated as he was enraged. Some normal, pathetic mortals try to kill him, and then, if he guessed correctly, kidnapped his… his _friends._ _His_ friends. **_His_** friends.

The possessive part of him that he had under lock and key for so long finally broke. It had been jiggled when they were first locked up, shaken when Mad and Mare went back to the government, and cracked when Anti’s body quiet literally died in front of him. He can no longer deny that he… likes being around them. He likes being in their company, he likes knowing that there are others, that he’s not the only one. He likes not being lonely.

And that brought out a part of him better sealed away, but it was too late to fix what had been broken since the beginning. Against their own volition, the other egos had attached themselves to Dark, and now they were stuck with him. He wouldn’t let them go, if he wanted to or not. And he didn’t want to, either.

So as he drove he contributed all of his emotions to his possessiveness, using that part of belief as a blame for his thoughts. He felt this way because it was his belief.

He completely ignored the concern hidden underneath the rage. That, he could not blame on anything, so he forgot about it instead.

  
  
  


“ **_I don’t care if I’m in pain._ ** ” Mare’s voice was reaching levels of pitch that were dangerous to even the other egos. He had been working on controlling himself more often, but his anger was blocking out his other thoughts. It even blocked out his unhinged self, which squirmed inside of him. “ **_You’re not Mad, you’re nothing more than a pathetic little fly masquerading as a wasp. Rid yourself of that disguise and bring me to Mad, before I make you do it myself._ ** ”

He wasn’t even using his powers. He didn’t need to control anyone, didn’t need to contort someone’s will. His sheer push of dominance was enough for now, it was all he needed.

And it was working. Mad’s imposter looked positively terrified, and, at that moment, he thought he heard a laugh. The imposter didn’t laugh, and he couldn’t see anyone else, nor did his ears hear anything. No, his energy had caught the light chuckle.

The imposter, somehow, calmed himself, taking a breath before speaking. “You can’t use your powers here,  _ Mare. _ ” The man spat his name out like it was vile. “So you found out, huh? Got better senses after being a lab rat? Where’d you get the new name from, eh, Song?  _ Mare. _ ” Mad’s imposter licked his lips as he said the name again. Mare’s anger grew, this imposter wasn’t doing as he asked- the unhinged part of himself squirmed again. “Mare, mmm, I guess it suits you.”

“ **_I don’t know what you are trying to do._ ** ” Mare growled, pulling on the ropes again. “ **_But I advise you to stop, lest I make you gouge out your eyes with your own hands._ ** ”

Mad’s imposter paused, before laughing, a watch appearing on his wrist as he pressed something. “I like to see you try.”

Mare could barely even get his mouth open before white hot daggers of agony shot through his skull, shooting through every part of his body in searing pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not going to pretend like I don’t love the fact that Mare can tell specific energy signatures. They can all do it, but I love it anyway.  
> And oh Mad, I’m sorry. I promise, you are my favorite.  
> 1 more chapter after this before I finish the bulk updates. I want to give a timeline for this. I meant to upload all of this in January, if you can believe it- but that obviously didn’t happen. The beginning of this book, the prologue, begins in December 2017, and this is all happening in the year 2018. So everything that’s happen in 2018 hasn’t happened here. Sorry I didn’t say so sooner- by the time I finish all of my jokes will be outdated, ugh.


	29. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the water spout...  
> Down came the rain and washed the spider out...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings?
> 
> Violence

It had been a few hours and they had almost made it.

Dark kept his phone on his lap, the gps open so that he could glance at it as he sped by. 

They had gotten one more text sometime during the trip. ‘ _ Please hurry. _ ’

It didn’t sound right coming from Mad. Dark drove faster.

The road was mostly empty, and he hadn’t used his powers at all, nor had Anti. The glitch leaned against the car door, feet propped up against the back of Dark’s chair. He stared at Dark, blinking every now and then as if in a trance.

Dark didn’t ask. He knew what the glitch was curious about. And he had no desire to talk of it.

“Ye know.” He spoke up after that thought, and Dark cursed himself for that jinx. “When I was jus created, ter were others with me.”

Dark barely held his surprise in. That wasn’t where he thought the conversation was going. He hummed to show that he was listening, but didn’t speak otherwise.

“T’er were a lot of t’em.” Anti continued. “I didn’t speak ta most of t’em, only ta fully formed ones.” He paused for a second, before continuing. “I considered t’em family.”

Dark kept his face straight as he continued down the road. “And why are you telling me this?”

Anti seemed to ignore the question. “Do ye consider yer other egos as family?”

He needed to shut up. He needed to shut up and not speak about this to him, not after what had happened with Wilford. His core had been quiet ever since the incident, and Dark hated that. It made him feel even more alone then he had been.

“Would you kindly stop sticking your nose into my business?” Dark hissed sourly. “Do I look to be in the mood to entertain you right now, Anti?”

“I know yer worrie-“

“I’m not!” Dark snapped, and the surprise was clear on his face when his eyes flickered to the knife Anti now had under his chin.

His face was hard, but his eyes were sad. “Pull over. I’ll drive ta rest of ta way.”

Dark opened his mouth to argue when the knife was pushed onto his skin, a bead of blood emerging from where skin hit metal.

He stopped the car. They switch sides.

Anti didn’t speak for the rest of the trip, which let Dark sit and think about what the fuck had just happened.

He’s been doing that a lot recently.

Mark’s soul hummed in amusement, and why were they doing this again? The little bastard wasn’t even appreciative, was he? Dark grumbled mentally, he’s spending all of this time trying to help his host when he could easily just stay here forever.

The soul grew brighter as Dark casted the thought away, barely even giving it a second glance.

  
  
  


_ ‘So…’ Dark started, still slightly confused about the whole thing he just watched. ‘Mind explaining your thought process?’ _

_ Mark sat at his chair, rewatching the four part special he and his crew had made. It had been awhile since it was created, but he was planning on doing a live stream with his friends to explain more about the special, and he wanted to write some stuff down to remember. It also dawned on him that Dark’s never seen the finished product, and that just wasn’t fair. _

_ Mark shrugged, cracking a small smirk before looking around, making sure no one was near. “I thought it’d be obvious to someone of your intelligence.” _

_ Dark held in a snort. ‘I understand most of it- but there are a few things that my belief is telling me, even though your mind is saying something different.’ _

_ Mark frowned. “I knew I kept it a little too vague.” He murmured, watching as a shadow moved across his window. “What are you talking about?” _

_ ‘The ending.’ Dark deadpanned. ‘What else?’ _

_ “Oh.” That made sense. But also didn’t. _

_ Dark sighed. ‘You created me to be my own entity, which some people understand- but I also feel like I am a combination of Celine and Damien, which wouldn’t be to bad on it’s own. I could deal with it if it wasn’t for the fact of how vague you made their relations!’ _

_ Mark’s frown deepened, before lighting up. “You sound like a over therozing fan.” He teased. _

_ Dark twitched in his mind. ‘Just answer these questions for me. Celine and Damien are siblings?’ _

_ “In my mind, yes.” Mark shrugged. “But it’s not canon, so-“ _

_ ‘Shut it.’ Dark grumbled. ‘Nevertheless, am I part of a merged Celine and Damien, or are they not part of me at all?’ _

_ “They’re a part of you.” Mark confirmed. “But you are your own person too.” _

_ ‘I feel very free, thank you.’ Dark said dryly. ‘Now that the silly questions are out of the way… Mark… are you trying to make me both genders?’ _

_ His host never seemed to have thought of that, as it took him a second to understand the question before flailing slightly. He opened his mouth to respond, before shutting it tight. After a few moments, he spoke, “I mean, if that’s what the fans think…” he grinned. _

_ ‘I will kill you and make you think it was your own idea.’ _

_ “Now you're getting it!” _

  
  
  


Mare’s never really felt much pain before, but whatever this was electrified him to his very core, and it didn’t seem like it would ever end. He was frozen and glued down to his chair, unable to do anything as his body spasmed in reaction to whatever they were fucking doing.

Piercing hot claws seemed to dig into his very energy, grabbing it and ripping it apart. His own energy had wrapped around his host, but he didn’t dare touch the soul, lest he accidentally transfer his pain. The soul was quiet and scared and worried all at the same time. Mare would appreciate that his host was worried for him, if he could think straight.

Because it felt as if Anti himself had taken his host’s soul and started to slice it up into pieces. It felt as if his very core had exploded.

And the little unhinged version of him wiggled like an itsy spider, giddy.

It was  _ free. _

Mare threw his head back and  **_screamed._ **

And the world seemed to scream with him.

Mad’s imposter winced as the pitch went higher and higher, but he wasn’t bleeding, he wasn’t dead, and Mare wanted him dead. He wanted to get up and squeeze the life out of him, no, make the man do it himself. And the man couldn’t, so he’d be stuck doing it forever. He wanted  _ everyone _ to feel the  _ pain _ he was feeling right now,  _ his _ pain.

His vocal cords tore as his pitch went inhumanly high, but his energy restored them faster then they could break. It made the pain heightened, but that in itself fueled his voice.

He couldn’t really feel it anymore, either way.

The only thing unhinged Mare could feel was the carnal pleasure of making a masterpiece with a corpse.

And he had no corpse. He must make his own.

Something in his brain, something he hadn’t noticed before, fizzed and broke.

The world around him changed.

He abruptly stopped screaming as the room dimmed, concrete cell turning into a wood basement of some sorts. The chair he was being held in didn’t actually have any rope around it. His hands had been free the whole time.

The pain had disappeared as well.

Something told the unhinged ego that it was what Dark had spoken of, a mind messing reality chip. That something was definitely Mare, but the ego was so out of it that his unhinged version easily pushed him back down, locking him in his own energy.

It was his time to play.

He wanted to test this body, really test it, unlike last time, back at the government base, the last time he had full control. He did need a test subject, though, and the man had disappeared once that chip in his mind had been broken.

Mare shrugged, oh well. Not like that man would last long, and he certainly wouldn’t be as fun as the usual subject he liked to poke and prod.

Speaking of, where was Mad? Mare knew he was around, he had watched the other version of him (the hinged one) yell and bitch about his whereabouts. He must be around.

Speak of the devil. “Hey, Mare. Going to help me out anytime soon?”

The unhinged version of Mare spun on his heel, unsurprised to see Mad sitting down, back against the wall. He, unlike Mare, had actually been tied up, with chains on each of his four limbs, connecting to the wall behind him. He looked awful, which Mare could only half contribute to the recent car crash they had been in.

He still obviously was very low on energy, as the left half of his face was littered in bruises and cuts, one eye black and lip busted. His clothes covered any other injury he might have, but he wasn’t healing in the slightest.

Mad arched an eyebrow. “Well?”

He walked forward, kneeling in front of the ego. He took in his bruised face, before humming blissfully. “I love seeing you like this.”

Mad paused, looking thoroughly confused before it dawned on him (rather quickly, he might add) and he groaned. “Not now.” He murmured, and the unhinged ego loved the flash of fear that ran through his eyes. “I can’t deal with this right now.” He slid one of his legs under him.

Mare caught his leg though, unsurprised when pain flashed through Mad’s face for a moment. “You can’t even get up right now, can you?” He grinned, almost purring. He felt Mare stir around in his energy, but pushed him back down. Something about Mare this time was more forceful, more willful then the times he had taken over before. The unhinged ego wondered why.

Mad glared, eyes burning, before biting out. “No, I can’t.” He huffed. “I only had enough to heal one leg. Which should go without saying.” He gestured to his messed up face.

He placed his hand on the mess of patterns of wounds littering Mad’s face, smirking when Mad flinched. He wasted no time applying more pressure, enjoying the sound of his hiss of pain. “You’re a lot more sadistic then normal.” Mad bit out again. “But I’m not in the mood for this. If you want to have some fun, there’s three people outside of this door.”

He paused, before jerking the hand on Mad’s broken leg back. Mad himself didn’t move, but he couldn’t stop the audible gasp of pain that came from him. His grin widened, and he booped Mad’s nose, before grabbing the chains holding him to the wall and ripping them apart. “I’ll always had more fun with you, darling.”

Mad grumbled something under his breath as Mare got up, striding over to the door and kicking it open. He wanted to be done with this quickly, since the other two egos were undoubtedly on their way, and he still wanted to spend some more time with Mad. The ego hurt and low on energy, it was a golden opportunity.

He still needed to pay Mad back for what his own unhinged version did, for all the trouble that he caused Mare.

  
  
  


Mad really just wanted a Diet Coke right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know I felt all cool adding that flashback in here cause I wanted to make sure it was known in this book what was going on but then Mark had to make it completely canon but you know this is set in 2018 where it isn’t canon yet so ha beat that!


	30. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out came the sun that dried up all the rain.  
> And the Itsy Bitsy Spider was out for blood again...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence

The people that had kidnapped them had had beef with agent Song, which transferred over to the Theorist since they had been a duo at the time. It was something about how he had betrayed them or something, ratted them out of something. He knew from both Mare and the crippled mind that he had only been friends with them because they had been deep in the human organ selling cartel, and he needed what they knew.

He didn’t really care though. They were taking valuable time away from a lot more fun things he could be doing.

There were only three of them, so he couldn’t write out MARE with a letter for each body like he had planned. He got creative with it and used their blood to spell out an E on the floor besides the last body. He could’ve done better, but he had better things to do.

When he went back for Mad, the injured ego had shakenly stood up, holding his weight on one foot and the wall. It was pathetic to watch, really.

He moved forward, intending to carry the ego himself, when Mad held out a hand in warning. “Stop.”

It would’ve sounded commanding and strong if he was anyone other then Mare, and he didn’t hear the exhaustion laced in his voice. This ego really was a wreck. He almost pitied him.

He laughed instead. “Like you could do anything to stop me anyway.” He took a step forward, unsurprised when nothing happened. Mad sighed, biting his lip for a moment before lowering his hand. “Not like i’d do anything permanent anyway. The other Mare would have my head.” He stepped closer, grabbing the other ego’s chin before pushing his fingers harshly into the bruises and cuts around that area, savoring the noise of pain. “Besides, wouldn’t want to do anything to that pretty face.”

Mad jerked his head to the side, freeing himself from Mare’s hold. “This is not the time nor place for any of this.” He leaned back against the wall, looking around the room. “The others will be here soon.”

“I know.” He retorted. “But they don’t know where we are, do they? They’ll have to search around for a little bit. Have to do something to pass the time.”

“They know where we are.” Mad bit back curtly. “I already told them.”

“Using that phone of yours?” Mare guessed. “We just got out, it’ll still take them a while.”

Mad laughed then, which wasn’t a sound Mare liked hearing from anyone besides himself. “I told them hours ago.”

Mare arched an eyebrow. “You used your powers? I thought you weren’t supposed to, and these people don’t scare you enough to break that rule.”

“They don’t.” Mad agreed, before adding on, reluctantly, in a mer murmur. “But you do.”

It took a second for it to register, but Mare laughed afterwards. “Oh, so you knew I was coming, did you?” He grinned. “I put that much fear in you?” He never thought it’d be true, and he thought it almost impossible for Mad to verbally admit it, but now that he did Mare was rolling around in bliss.

But Mad had taken on a small smirk as well. “Not normally.” He started. “But I’m in a vulnerable state -as you can clearly see, I can’t deny it- and the others are quiet far away.” He paused. “You are something to be wary about, but I’m not scared of you.”

Mare frowned then, the starting of a glare forming on his face. “Is that what you believe?”

“That’s what I know.”

And it enraged him that even in the state he was in right now, Mad could still look so calm and confident. “I could easily carve you up right now, heal you, and then do it again, several times before anyone showed.”

“Go ahead.” Mad dared. “All it would do is ruin these clothes and take your energy. I wouldn’t feel a thing.”

Mad didn’t dare bring up the fact that Mare _could_  make him feel pain, and quiet easily if he knew how. Mad didn’t know if the unhinged version knew, but if he did, everything would get a lot more messy. 

“You’ve been feeling it for a while now.” Mare observed bitingly, and the fact that he didn’t seem to know let Mad become cocky enough to retort.

“Body reflex.”

And this was what annoyed and enraged the unhinged version of Mare so much about Mad. But while it irritated him, it was also the reason for why he was Mare’s favorite subject, his favorite little test. He never got old, never bent under his will. He was a challenge, and Mare oh so wanted to beat it.

A teeny tiny thought came to mind, one so small that he almost didn’t catch it. “No energy, huh?” He murmured.

”You already know that-“

Mare covered his mouth with his hand, clicking his tongue at Mad while tisking. Mad looked confused, but Mare could see something glinting in his eyes. He hoped it was fear.

He spoke before Mad gained any idea of what he was doing. “ ** _Pinch yourself._** ”

Mad’s eyes widen, before his better arm came up to pinch his other bicep sharply. It was over in a few seconds, and didn’t hurt, but they both knew what it meant.

”Shit.” Mad didn’t try to hide his emotions at that moment, because _Mare knew_. No, not Mare, _the unhinged version._

Oh fuck.

Mare cackled, throwing his head back in a fit of giggles that racked his body. “Oh! Oh, _this is perfect._ ” His words seem to purr for a moment, which Mad is sure he did just to up his already growing fear factor. He kept his face blank as Mare continued, pouting. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

He needed to pretend like he wasn’t worried, like this couldn’t all go downhill. “This is common knowledge.” Mad said, taking on a tone made to make Mare feel stupid. “Without energy, other ego’s powers effect us. What, you never knew that?”

But Mare wasn’t falling for it, and he was still chuckling, making Mad wish that he wasn’t already backed against the wall and powerless. God damnit unhinged Mare always has the worst (or best, for Mare) timing!

Mare, on the other hand, just wanted to figure out what he wanted to do. He could sing something and make it possibly a permanent change, but singing isn’t his way and he wouldn’t be around much long to enjoy long term. He felt Mare fight harder to gain back control. Maybe it was because their auras were connected, but Mare seemed to realize how scared his friend was getting. He was sending a very clear message to his unhinged version.

Said unhinged version ignored it. Not like Mare could do anything anyway.

He almost didn’t notice Mad inching away. “ _ **Stop**._” He tested out again, pleased when Mad froze.

Mad grimaced, before adopting a different strategy. “This is bland, even for you. You’re always so extravagant, yet you test something as boring as your own powers on me?” He huffed. “I want the old unhinged you back-“

Mare had replaced the hand, shhing him as-well this time. “You’re delaying the inevitable, honey. All I want you to do is _**feel pain**._”

And he knew it worked, because seconds later Mad gasped, clutching at his basically broken leg in complete pain. Mare didn’t know how long that command would last, but that leg was getting in the way of his fun.

So he took the butcher’s knife he found and carved up the bodies with, taking it off the strap he had it on behind him and keeping it out of view while he asked. “How broken is that leg?”

Mad furrowed his brows, before looking at it, pain turning into confusion. “Metal baseball bat broken. Shattered, I guess.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

Mare grinned, placing a hand on Mad’s shoulder. He took a second to savor how tense he became, before using his strength to push the other ego down the wall. He crashed down to the floor, still sitting somehow. Wincing, he pulled the bad leg out from under him. “Why-“

Mare didn’t let him finish, bringing his knife wielding hand up and through the leg like it was made of butter.

He’s almost immediately kicked out of the driver’s seat by the other Mare, but he already dealt his damage. So Mare took the victory where he could, and instead savored the pain that racked the pretty ego’s face and the delightful scream that came with it before he was gone.

 

Mad’s day had been going wonderful. Made up with his closest friend, got healed, _finally_ started to gain back some energy-

Then it all flipped and went to shit. Whoever these people were shot Dark and Anti, and used some kind of drug that completely ragdolled their bodies. Mad couldn’t use those muscles for anything. When it finally wore off he was hurt again (uuuuugh) and when he asked some questions all of his answers were just ‘shut ups.’ Of course, he didn’t shut up, which is what lead to a metal baseball bat to both legs and the lovely picture on half of his face.

He was able to heal one of his legs with the energy he had been gaining back, but that left him back at square zero- completely drained. He could do nothing as he watched them hook up the mind chip to Mare, and even though he knew the pain wasn’t real, it still wasn’t a fun thing to watch. And what came after… he knew would be worse.

He had a feeling since the moment he woke up that Mare’s other version would come out eventually- probably while Mad while still in this state of ugly. He won’t deny that that was why he sent that last ‘please hurry’ text at the end, he was positive that the unhinged version would show by then.

But he wasn’t expecting to _lose a fucking leg!!_

 _And_  it shouldn’t of hurt, but it _did!_  THe unhinged Mare, somehow, fuckin figured out how to actually hurt him and he shouldn’t of healed his other leg, if he didn’t he would’ve had enough energy to block off Mare’s powers. But he didn’t and he could feel pain and _ohmygod it hurt so much-_

He despised that last triumph look he got before Mare backed up, blinking confusingly. Mad had a feeling that normal Mare was back. “Finally.” He murmured, panting from the pain.

“Did I..?” Mare blinked, looking wary of himself.

“Yes.” Mad grunted, before holding out an arm. “Help me up. Can’t move. Body’s going into shock.”

He was going into shock. His energy was, and he was finding it damn hard to hide the fact that he was in pain. But luckily this body was actually kind of healthy so the adrenaline and endorphins were kicking in.

Mare grabbed onto his arm, transferring some energy as he pulled him up. By the time Mad could stand, he had been given enough energy to stop the bleeding, also numbing and soothing the pain He stuttered, like he wanted to apologize, but no words came out.

“Quiet, Mare.” Mad mumbled, already feeling much better. He hid a wince from his friend as he steadied himself. Mare didn’t need to know that he actually _felt that_. He was already at a low point as it was. “There’s no need for an apology.”

Mare closed his mouth, before stubbornly opening it again. “Sorry.”

Mad gave him a hard glare for a moment, before holding a hand against the wall. He looked down at where his _leg_ use to be, before grimacing. “I… I think it better we not tell Dark and Anti what really caused this.”

Whatever Mare was expecting to hear, it wasn’t that.  His eyes widen in shock. “What?”

Mad blinked slowly, trying to clear his blurry vision from probably the lack of blood. “I think if they ask, we say it was one of the people who had beaten me up.” He explained. “We won’t lie to them.”

“It’ll just be smudging the truth.” Mare finished.

“No.” Mad interjected. “That is the truth. The unhinged version of you was one of the people who damaged me. I don’t have names for any of the people you just now killed, and we don’t have a name for the other versions of ourselves. The man who cut off my leg was just another nameless.”

Mare looked conflicted, so Mad placed a hand on his shoulder, both to help Mare and stabilized himself. “If they find out, all the blame is on me. I forced you to chose this option.”

Mare snorted. “Like you can force me to do anything in that state.”

Mad grinned, and his half ruined face reminded Mare of something much more sinister. “You’d be surprised.”

And as Mare helped the one legged ego out of their cell, Mare couldn’t shake the shiver that ran through him at Mad’s words.

Why was he reminded just now of a certain musical?

 

Dark and Anti arrived just as they saw the building open, and watched Mare walk out of it, face slick with sweat and flushed. Besides that he looked fine.

Then he helped Mad up and Dark almost lost it.

Can’t _leave them alone for_ **_one single day-_ **

“Who caused this?” Dark asked, nose wrinkling at the ego’s appearance. He doubted it hurt at all, but the wounds itself looked painful as all hell. Dark took a moment to think about how every semi permanent wound almost always happened to Mad in particular before speaking, voice calm but furious. “Who did this?”

Mad didn’t waste a moment. “Dunno, a few men in the organ selling business, something with the agents. Doesn’t matter, they’re dead.”

Dark turned to Mare, expecting him to add to the story, but the other ego was set completely on helping Mad up the steps, like he wasn’t paying attention to what Mad was saying at all.

“Aw.” Anti said, frowning as he absently twirled his knife, as if it was a tic. “Should’ve saved some for me.”

Mare froze for a second, as if something came to mind, but Mad just waved it away. “Let the police find them, we can’t stay here to long and I need to regrow a limb.”

Dark took a second, before moving to Mad’s unoccupied side and helping him towards the car. “Very lucky that you two were the ones to deal with them.” Dark murmured, not meaning to be heard but heard anyway. “I’d have made it last **_much_ ** longer.”

If Dark was expecting a different reaction then the muted silence he got, he didn’t show it. With his help, they got Mad back into the car quickly, before Dark took back the wheel and gunned it down the road. Their plan of limiting power usage was now null- Mad needed a leg and he couldn’t stop his energy from giving him one. He’d be using his energy constantly now, slowly regrowing his limb until it was good as new, and then it’d go on to his face and anywhere else he was hurt from. During that time, he wouldn’t have (or barely have) any access to his powers, which Dark was pretty sure they’d need once they reached the vortex.

Which was why they needed a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea that Mare’s unhinged version is more sadistic and creepy then Mad’s. It just kinda works for their characters, like two sides of a coin.  
> And don’t mind the fact that some strange unhinged part of me found this chapter’s and last chapter’s summary delightful.  
> Can you guys tell that Mad is my favorite? Can you?!?
> 
>  
> 
> Note: TheGoofySeaDragon- You Are right, the unhinged version’s consciousness is basically only conflicting belief. Which, of course, made them unhinged. They use the same energy as their more sane counterparts, though, because they are one in the same. It’s like two sides of the same coin. But, you know, they’re manic, and they both have a somewhat vicious belief towards one another that only really shows when unhinged.  
>  
> 
> I made this part of a series, guys. Look at me, I’m tech savvy.  
> Don’t get your hopes up, lol. Hope you like what I have in store tho.


	31. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing is caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 800 hits I’m shook?!  
> 70 kudos I’m shook?!?!?!  
> 30 comments I. Am. Seizing
> 
> Warnings?  
> Anti

Mad had a feeling something like this would happen, but he thought Dark would wait until they were at least a little farther away before pulling over.

“How much energy do you think you’ll need to regrow that leg?” He asked, glancing behind him to show who he was talking to, even though it was obvious.

 _A lot_. Mat thought sarcastically, but he was actually doing the calculations in his mind as Mad provided the information he needed. Mad took a second before answering. “In weight, quarter of a pound, give or take a bit. Hard to tell, I only have the amount it took to heal my head to judge with.”

It was pretty light, but energy didn’t weigh much- like a feather, so it was a lot of energy. It wouldn’t drain an ego, no where close, but Mad didn’t have much to spare. He’s lucky he was coherent in the first place.

Just when he was getting better, god damnit.

Dark’s eye twitched, and he frowned, before leaning back in his seat, thinking. Anti’s eyes were narrowed at him, as if he had an idea with what he was thinking of. His nose wrinkled, before he sighed as well, leaning back. After a second, though, he held his hand out to the side, resting his arm on the middle glove box. In the palm of his hand, a black wisp of energy started to appear, forming into a ball.

Mad, for once, was completely flabbergasted. No way. _No way._

The black energy ball in his hand was growing steadily, gaining mass slowly but volume quickly. When it threatened to spill over his hand, he gave a side look to Dark.

The ego nodded subtly at him, probably in appreciation, before holding his hand against the mass of energy. Wisps of black energy latched onto his hand, like it was a puppy and it’s food. Dark didn’t absorb it- instead, Mad could see his own energy start to filter with Anti’s, growing the ball of energy even larger. After a moment of him doubling the size of the energy (looked like a quarter of a pound, Mad noticed-) Dark _gave it to him._

It was the logical thought process but Mad still couldn’t get it. Mare seemed just as baffled.

Ego energy in it’s own way is intimate. Energy isn’t seen or shown in most situations, because it’s so important. Ego energy in itself is basically the ego’s body, just a body missing a soul. The bodies they were in are just vessels for their own bodies, their energy.

Mare’s given Mad some of his own energy before, several times, and Mad would do the same if needed. But it’s just not something you do, unless the egos doing it have a strong bond. And Mad must’ve read the situation wrong, because he thought this was strictly professional. A few meaningful moments, but besides that, professional.

He realized it was logical for them to help him heal, but they didn’t have to openly show their energy, they could just transfer it through contact, like Mare does. It’s more practical, he would think.

Gingerly, he took the mass of energy. It latched onto him, slowly sinking into his skin. Even though the energy looked exactly the same, Mad could easily tell which energy was whose. It’s a vibration they gave off, an aura and an emotion. Dark’s energy and aura was always a deep, mutely vibe, radiating a calm sadness. Anti’s was high and ringing, with a giddy sort of bounce to it. It was so much stronger then his own energy, weak or not, and Mad wondered distantly if it could take over.

The energy finally disappeared into his body, going straight towards his host’s soul. It mingled through Mad’s own energy before surrounding the soul, and dispersing through his body, slowly turning into his own energy.

Dark and Anti seemed to realize when their own energy touch Mat’s soul, as they both twitched at that moment. Mad was still trying to comprehend what happened, so Mare spoke. “You both halved it on giving him energy.” He nodded in approval.

Dark’s lips tilted in an inside joke. “We’ve had practice finishing what the other started.”

Anti snorted, and the two seemed to go onto another conversation, but Mad was left behind in his own mind. Something didn’t connect.

He pushed the crippled (though now healing) leg underneath him as his thoughts ran around his head. Were they hiding something? It felt like they were. Something must’ve happened while they were trapped.

Because not only did they give him energy, but they did it _together._ And before that, they had an entire conversation about it with only body language! Mad feels like he missed something.

If he thought about it, the energy of both Dark and Anti radiated possessiveness before it merged with him. Was that what this was about? Were they upset that someone took their _underlings_ and hurt them? Only _they_ can do that! Boo hoo. Mad laughed mentally. It made sense, at least for Dark, that was his belief on a basic level. Anti as well.

And, wow, was Mad hypocritical.

For some reason he felt bad about that thought process, so he scrapped it in favor of dividing up the work his energy had to do to his body. His newly acquired energy was all focused on his leg, so he took the little he had of his own to heal his own face. Best not scare someone with his broken temporary face.

  
  


Mad must’ve gone to sleep at some point, since he blinked and they weren’t where they were before, and his leg was completely healed. He wiggliged the toes on his new foot for a moment, before feeling his face, clean of cuts or bruises or busted lips. He also didn’t feel like crap- the donated energy was mostly used up, but his own energy had replenished itself somewhat.

Mad chalked it up to something good finally happening and left it at that.

“Sleeping beauty’s awake.” Mare murmured outside of the car, and, wait, the others were _outside_ of the car. Mad must’ve been really out of it to not noticed.

Mad started to get out of the car, but then he noticed some new shoes and a pair of socks in the middle seat. Snatching them, he put them on (discarding the single shoe) and looked at his pants. He shrugged, before using his telekinesis to tear the unripped side up to where the ripped side had been. Not his best work, but at least he looked more professional.

He finally got out of the car, gingerly putting weight on his new leg before finding that the muscles already seemed broken in. Almost jogging up to the others, he grinned at Mare to show that he was fine.

“I need new pants.” Was his greeting to the others.

“Ye seemed ta do with what ye had.” Anti snickered for a moment, not taking his eyes off what was in front of him.

“Not the time.” Dark snapped, and his tone gave Mad pause. Dark’s eyes flickered to him, before moving out of the way to let Mad see. “This is your specialty, correct?”

Mad stepped forward, excitement coursing through him. A large, bulky, _lit up with technology_ , base. He smothered a smile. “Is this what I think it is?”

Mare nodded. “Yep.” He said, before turning to look at him. “Got enough energy for this?”

“Just don’t ask me to lift up a car.” Mad tried for a joke. “Besides, I don’t need telekinesis in there- I can _feel_ the humming electronics in there.” He sighed blissfully, before stepping forward.

“Already have a plan?” Anti asked as Mad looked for a way down the steep incline they were at.

“Watch it, Mad.” Dark grunted, and Mad paused. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to go awol.

Even though he so wanted to.

“I do have a plan actually.” Mad responded. “It’s called using live bait.”

He hopped down from the incline, landing and tumbling for a moment before catching himself. He felt giddy, it’s been a while since he last had full control over his limbs, without worry about his energy.

He could feel it thrumming through his fingers now.

  
  


“I don know about ye, but I wanta see tis close up.”

Anti took a moment to watch Mad move forward before glitching away, leaving Dark and Mare to do whatever. Mare looked at Dark, before shrugging and moving to follow Mad.

Anti appeared leaning on the doorway, behind the closest guards to the entrance. In between him and Mad stood an electric barbed fence, a Jeep full of armed men in front of it, and behind it the two guards Anti stood behind.

The Jeep window opened, and a man shouted something at Mad as he approached. Mad listened with a tilted head, before waving his hand in dismissal.

The Jeep exploded in a bright flame moments after.

The men in front of Anti (who still hadn’t noticed him as he watched the glory in front of him) ran up to the fence, shouting and drawing guns and pointing quiet scarily at him.

Mad had walked past the burning Jeep and up to the fence behind. He had grabbed it, as if intending to climb over. It seemed as if he had turned off the electirty somehow. As the man pointed their guns at him, he looked past them to Anti.

The glitched sighed, equally annoyed that he couldn’t sit back and watch but also happy that he could do something. Strolling up to the first guy, he went for his most bloody one swing method of using his strength to plunge his hand deep within the guy’s back, breaking a few ribs as his hand closed around what he thought was one of the heart’s arties and crushing it. The man, still alive but not for long, crumpled to the ground with a strangled yell, and Anti didn’t give the other one enough time to gap, summoning his knife and slicing his throat open.

By the time he was done, Mad had scaled the fence and was striding over to the door. “This base is moderately large.” He mumbled as Anti strolled after. “Google’s nearby, but the vortex seems to be in a pretty far location compared to everything else here.”

“Tell me where.” Anti said. “I’ll glitch you.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Mad asked with a grin so much like Anti’s own, except… more grounded, sane. “Come on, we got a world to end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final stretch here, guys. I got another draft on this thing already and I wanna get it posted b4 the due date passes and archive deletes it soooo I needa get this done. If you wanna read it when it’s out, it’ll be under the Welp series too- I’m gonna put anything ego related under that.


	32. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a knife!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close guys...
> 
> Warnings?  
> I think you guys, if you’ve made it this far, don’t need warnings anymore. Same old same old as everything else, nothing that hasn’t been done before... probably.  
> Add a knife though!

Anti’s always had a clear understanding of everyone’s powers, even if he pretends like he doesn’t.

Everyone’s but Mad’s.

Because it seemed like he was using telekinesis, but he was right shit at that ability, so it had to be his control of technology. The thing is, Anti never thought that Mad was that skilled with that power either.

Oh boy, was he wrong.

The door slammed open, bruising the wall on the other side with it’s force. A military man yelped as he was brutally crushed by the door, going limp as Mad strolled in, Anti following behind.

As they entered the building’s threshold, the entire building flickered, lights going off then back on repeatedly in rapid succession before stopping on on. Mad kept walking forward, like he knew exactly where he was going.

“I’ve never been somewhere so dependant on technology before.” Mad murmured as he went. “It’s almost as if it’s giving me energy as well.  **_I can see everything._ ** ”

He held out an arm, and a door to the far side behind them locked shut. Several seconds later, harsh banging started up from the door, but neither of them paid attention.

A few men appeared in front of them, and Anti pushed Mad out of the way, eager to spill more blood. They wore protective armor, but it was still to easy. He slit the throat of one, taking his gun and glitching behind the other two, firing point blank into the back of their skulls. They went limp, and Anti discarded his gun, taking the two full ones he just acquired and stuffing them into each of his back pockets.

Mad arched a brow. “You’re a gunman now?”

Anti smirked, “Always knew how to use t’em. They’re jus not as fun.”

The two continued, Mad brushing his hands along the walls and relatively happy (he was probably neck deep in some secret information he found) while Anti looked around with relative attentiveness. Mad seemed okay, but Anti knew better then to hope for the best- and Dark would be pissed if he somehow let him get hurt.

He be pissed at himself too, but that doesn’t matter.

And Mad didn’t even seem to realize that he was limping at all. It was slight, but Anti could tap into the good doctar to see it.

He wanted to kill those who did it, but they were already dead. He’ll kill those that indirectly did it, then. He’d have to live with that.

  
  


They walked through with relative quietness for a bit before three armed men ran around a corner, guns at the ready. Mad twitched, and a panel from the ceiling flung off it’s hinges, slamming into a guy’s head and knocking him out. His friends opened fire, but Anti glitched into the bullet’s way, taking a good twenty of them to the chest and arms, but it wasn’t really a problem.

He heard Mad grumble something about being a damsel, but didn’t quip back. Instead, he summoned his knife and threw it into one of the men’s neck, savoring the gurgled sound heard shortly thereafter. He had just summoned his knife back when the last remaining man fired, this time aiming for the head.

It happened to quick for him to really process what he was doing, but when he turned around there were two parts of one bullet stuck indented in the wall. He looked back at the man incredulously, before looking at his knife. It was duller then usual, but slowly sharpening itself.

He just cut a bullet in half. With a  _ knife. _ What the fuck? That should be impossible. It’s the coolest thing ever but what?! You know what, he didn’t care if it was impossible, because he did it and it was  _ awesome _ .

In his amazement he had forgotten to kill the last guy, but soon a sharp crack filled the air and Mad put his hands down, the man fell limp to the floor - and who cares  _ Anti just cut a bullet in half mid air! _

“I… am amazing.” Anti slouched slightly. “I am ta equivalent of ah god.”

“Sure you are.” Mad agreed, amused. He moved forward, but Anti stayed where he was.

“I mean, compared ta all of ye, I can teleport and tha’s it. I got ah knife too… but can  **_you_ ** cut a bullet in half?”

“No.”

“No ye can’t!” Anti cackled, doing a twirl for a moment, grinning. “I cut a bullet in half!”

“Yes you did.”

“With a knife!”

“Yes you did.”

  
  
  


They had made it a good hour into the base, encountering more people as time passed. Anti didn’t hear an alarm, and Mad hadn’t silenced any, so maybe they still didn’t know they were here.

Or they knew and they were getting prepared.

Mad turned a corner, jumping back when Dark and Mare appeared from a shadow. “Had your fill of fun?”

“Not in ta slightest.” Anti laughed. “I cut ah bullet in half! Wit a knife!”

“Yes you did.”

That line was starting to sound degrading. Anti shot him a glare. He laughed.

Barely a moment later, he paused, tilting his head to the side. He was silent for a moment, before looking over at Dark. “Door over.”

Dark nodded, face turning blank, before turning, dissappearing into shadows as he went.

“What?” Anti asked, confused as to what just happened.

“Don’t follow him.” Was Mad’s answer. “He wants to do this alone.”

  
  


Dark appeared on the other side of the wall, staying silent until he was spotted. Google was hooked up to some type of device, several thick cables trailing from different ports in his body to a large computer besides him. He wasn’t deactivated, but he was as still and lifeless as he would be if he was.

Several scientists stood around the computer, analyzing whatever data they had gotten from it. It looked as if they were looking through his recordings.

A shadow harpooned itself through the screen, and the scientists all screamed, hudling together as Dark moved towards them.

“Who set him up in this?”

No one moved, until Dark barked out the question again. Shakingly, around half of them raised their hands. He asked who knew how to take him out of it, and the other half raised their hands.

Shadows quickly beheaded those who had hooked Google up to the machine. The still alive scientists screamed, and Dark waited a moment before speaking. “If you release him, I’ll let you go. But the more minutes you take, the more of you die.”

They worked fast, finishing in just over one minute.

Dark decided to be nice, and just knocked the rest of them out via pressure points instead of killing them. Google still looked inactive, and Dark stepped forward, taking a closer looked. “Google?”

“I’m here.” Google answered. His eyes fluttered, before he blinked several times. “Project 4.1-“

“Google, shut up.” Dark muttered, and surprisingly, the Android did.

“Is anyone else here?” He asked instead.

Dark gestured around him, and Google followed his movements, not bothering to look as well. He must’ve trusted Dark enough to not worry.

Google took a moment to speak again, staring into Dark’s eyes. “You are going to take my energy now, correct?”

Dark nodded, tongue to thick to speak.

Google laughed softly. “Just as quiet as I remember.”

And then… he hugged him.

Dark didn’t realize how much he needed that. Google wasn’t warm in the slightest, but he was an ego he had lost long ago, and he  _ really missed- _

Google let go much to early, and Dark could barely watch as he plunged his hand into his own stomach. His eyes flickered, and a buzzing sound started from somewhere inside him. He pulled his hand out, holding some dark energy, barely half a foot big. It clung to his hand like it was a baby, but it was reaching out for Dark too.

”Statistics from your world show...” Google rasped, a buzzing scream accompanying his voice. “That Darkiplier really needed a hug.”

Dark held out his hand, and Google dropped the energy in.

He powered down immediately after, eyes going dark and figure slumping. His skin lost it’s color as it turned back to metal, and the clothes Google was known for wearing seemed to melt away into nothing. All that was left was a metal skeleton, as if Google never existed.

His energy wiggled in his hand, trying to get absorbed through his skin. He almost didn’t want too.

It took him a minute to realize he was crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun! With a knife!  
> Oh, and that Dark and Google stuff. That happened too. And Anti taking some bullets for the team. Yeah.  
> But my knife!


	33. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give a Siren a microphone and all hell breaks lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more til epilogue dude I might cry...
> 
> Important note at bottom!

The others went ahead without Dark. It was quiet for awhile, until they reached what seemed to be a room for storing cars, and tanks, and the such. It was quite large, and quite full with gun toting humans.

To many of them.

But then Mad held out his hand, and something like a comm seemed to fly into it. The speakers above turned on with static. The soldiers all clapped their hands to their helmeted heads as their own helmet comms turned on in static.

Mad gave it to Mare. “All yours.”

Mare’s eyes flashed black. “Pleasure.”

He took a breath before looking out into the room of men, all about to fire. “ **_Foot soldiers, line up in front of the tanks._ ** ”

Mad wrinkled his nose as the soldiers did as told, and the ego took a step away from Mare, as if something worried him. Anti wanted to file the thought for later, but Mare continued too quickly.

**_“Tanks. Fire._ ** ”

Anti’s always enjoyed a good cannon show.

  
  


A few more minutes of clearing up those still in the tanks, and they were finished with that room. It seemed as if that was their frontal assault, since most of the people they ran into seemed to be only scientists.

They passed without fighting, but when one did stop with a taser, Anti found it unfair that Mad was the one who stopped her. “Question. Well, more of a problem. You can do experiments on it later, you know, scientific method and all.” He chuckled, as if something in that sentence amused him in a bad way.

Anti pouted.” I wanted to deal with her!”

“Three one door over.” Mad rubbed his face, before continuing. “If someone played a story based game the normal way they do, and had the choice to befriend and love each character they met, or hate and kill each character they meet, what would they do different between the first time they played through and the second time? Only-“ he paused. “That the first time ended with all their deaths once you completed your goal, no matter what you do? What will the player do different if they know that they can’t save anyone- will they leave them all together? Will they kill them themselves? Will they act nice to them in their final hours! Or will they remain a neutral balance?”

Anti yawned. “You and your world destruction obsession! Come on, let’s go already.”

The lady, though, was shaking. “No… no... you don’t mean-“

Mad threw her against a far wall, and the audible crack of her spine was tale-telling. What caused that lady to become so shaken was strange, but Anti didn’t question him. He still had three others to kill in the adjacent room.

 

It took much to long for Anti’s tastes, but a while later they had made it to a completely steel door, something seemingly impossible to destroy.

Two long spikes of shadows skewered the wall before pushing opposite of each other, jamming the door open in the process.

Mad turned around. “Finished?”

Dark stood behind them, eyes completely black, like a void. The others seemed to not care, but Anti understood why. To hide the red eyes. “We’ve waited long enough for this. Let’s not wait any longer.”

With that, he strode into the room. Anti heard something akin to a sword being unsheathed, and then a few painful grunts, and by the time he entered, the ten people inside were dead. Dark moved out of the way to let Mad have a go at the large console in front of him, and he took to it immediately, typing something and pressing buttons as if he had gone to school and majored in this specific console.

“They put an encryption on the key to our dimension specifically.” Mad murmured as his hands moved faster. “It’s top notch… and actually pretty good. Give me a minute.”

Mare whistled. “A whole minute? Damn, Mad, you're losing it.”

“It takes actual hackers hours, if not days or weeks, to hack something.” Mad muttered with a grin. “Go hum in a corner if you're bored.”

“ **_Mad hurry up~ Mad hurry up~ Mad hurry up~ Mad hurry up~”_ **

Mad started humming it too at some point, and his pitch went up a octave when he pressed a button and the large screen on top of the console changed, green lettering appearing. He scanned it, before typing something in and pressing another button.

“ _ Warning! _ ” A female automotive voice spoke, and the screen went yellow and red with hazard signs. “ _ Entering this dimension has become strictly off limits. Doing so can cause a tear in both dimensions, and the origin dimension will be consumed and destroyed. Please advise against this. _ ”

That didn’t sound good.

“Mad.” Anti asked. “What does tha’ mean?”

Mad had a sheepish look, something that a kid would have if caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “Exactly what it said.”

“We have no time for this.” Dark said, examining the newly opened vortex. It was a metal framed doorway, the inside a swirling color of mainly purple, but with blue and green and white and pink inside of it. 

Mad sighed. “The origin dimension, aka this one has a tear in the fabric of reality in it. So does ours. This is because they took us from our dimension, they’re not supposed to cross. In short, temporary times, it’s not a problem but we’ve been here for almost a year now so-“

“Mad.”

“The world’s ending.” Mad said suddenly, for what seemed like the seven thousandth time. “When we go through the vortex, we’re going to break this dimension and end the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s the end of the world as we know it....  
> To soon? Plot twist? I mean, Mad’s been saying it forever, so prob not. Said it first in Chapter 2... -“Hush hush, secrets secrets.” Mad answered with a cold giggle, swiping through folders. “Secrets keep the world from ‘sploding.”-
> 
> Shameless self promo! Uploaded first chapter of new story, find it in this series!


	34. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad guys who sacrifice themselves for the good guys...  
> well...  
> They were never the bad guys to begin with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end... my only friend the end...

“What do ye mean, ta world’s endin?” Anti screeched.

“I said it several times!” Mad groaned. “I gave everyone plenty of warning.”

“Mad, you need to realize.” Mare sighed. “It’s hard to tell when you’re being dramatic or not.”

“I sincerely thought that that was just a verbal tic you had.” Dark nodded in agreement, seemingly uncaring of what he just learned. “Dr. Iplier has the same problem, always lying about people’s deaths-“

“We don’ care-“ Anti interrupted. “So ye mean, everyone in tis dimension, is going te die?”

“Once we leave, Yes.” Mad nodded. “It’s our energy mixed with our host’s souls and the crippled minds we carried along with the world’s-“

“That doesn’t matter.” Mare said. “Can we stop it?”

“Not that I know of, no.”

Anti growled, grabbing Mad’s collar and pulling him forward. “Have ye even thought about it?! Everyone is tis dimension is goin ta die, and ye don’ care!”

Mad ripped his hand away, anger masking his other emotions. “Of course I care!” He snarled, and it was the first time he ever showed outright anger. It silenced the room. Mad’s face softened, and his pant from yelling slowed into a broken face and a soft exhale. His hands flew into his hair, ripping at the roots as he gripped it. “I’ve- I’ve been thinking, but nothing I’ve thought of would work.” He gave out a dry, broken laugh. “Look at this, ive finally found something I can’t solve.”

It took only a second for Mare to get into Mad’s head, to know what he was thinking. His despair for the Steph of this world was almost palpable.

Frowning, he stepped forward. “There are a lot of innocent people in this reality, and most of them don’t deserve this. But their governments decided to do this, knowing the consequences or not. Our hosts deserve to live the lives they’ve made, and no matter how much hell I’ll get for this when we finally die, my top priority has been, and will always be, Nate’s safety.”

“Realities aren’t supposed to ever meet.” Dark tilted his head slightly. “Severe effects of such dimensions colliding would mean the end of the weaker one.”

“Survival of ta fittest.” Anti said softly. “Who’s ta say staying here won’t jus break ta world as well, just slower? I came all tis way, I’m not stoppin.”

Mad didn’t speak. He was staring at the ground, eyes dead and mouth set. When he looked up, Mare didn’t see an intelligent lunatic, he saw Mat, uncertain and afraid.

Against his will, his mind went back to the simulation.

_ That wasn’t you _ …

At least Nate had forgiven him completely. He could even feel the soul trying to comfort him. But Nate didn’t know what they were planning to do. 

And he would never know.

“Comeon.” He said. “The dimension will be destroyed if only one of us does it, or if all of us do it. I’m doing it, you can all blame me for the destruction of this world.”

Anti snorted. “I don’ care about tis place, blame me if ye want ta blame someone. I want ta leave before Jack gets curious about what we’re doin.”

Mad didn’t move for a moment, before setting his jaw. He stalked over to the vortex, examining it with a cold eye. “Our best chance is to leave as we came- with no body attached. If we take all of our energy out of these bodies, they’ll die almost instantaneously. When our hosts’ souls are released, we can take them and go through. We’ll be without bodies while trying to find our own, but it’ll be less conspicuous anyway.”

His face was something akin to broken mask- fragile and slightly see thru. Mad had great masks when he wanted to, but it didn’t seem like he could hide it all this time.

**_Good job Mad._ ** Mare thought sadly.  **_Hiding emotions_ ** **_always_ ** **_solves the problem._ **

_Help him then._  Nate was speaking to him then. _Whatever the problem is, help him!_

Mare didn’t answer him.

“You sure about this?” Mare asked as he sat Indian style on the ground.

“At least 90%.” Mad shrugged. “Give or take.”

Mare glared, before relaxing his hands in his lap and shifting his entire energy, pushing it up and out. Even with closed eyes, he could still see the others watch as his energy streamed from his ears, nose, and mouth. As the last bit left, swirling around above his stolen body, he watched as the body quickly grayed, gaining almost a zombie like look to it. The others watched in silence as he made his energy still, searching for the soul like a hawk. If he missed it, and it went to an afterlife, then he would disappear. Or maybe die. Probably the latter.

“Mare.”

That was Dark, and he stiffened, staring at the slumped body. He could see his host’s soul emerge from the decaying flesh, floating up towards the sky.

Like a tornado, he swirled around the floating soul, holding it like it was a baby. It was pure enough to be a baby, at least.

Nate’s soul glowed brighter then he had ever seen as it adjusted to it’s new home. He saw the others cover their eyes as the soul burned brighter. Once the light dimmed, he gave his energy a wave to inform them that it worked.

Anti went next, Dark following, with Mad last. It was a strange sight. Even though regular mortals wouldn’t be able to see them clearly in that form, Mare was still surprised. At this point, Anti and Dark didn’t seem to have a clearly larger amount of energy then he and Mad had. Was that because people hadn’t thought of them in a while?

Mare couldn’t think to hard on it, since Anti was flying around, dark energy crackling and glitching as he dived into the vortex. Mare didn’t wait, jumping in immediately after.

  
  


 

 

They all felt the dimension shattering.

There was no screams, no cries of despair or release of souls. It just felt like someone had snapped a candy bar in half- one quiet sound, and then silence.

The quietness of it all was chilling.

It was bright and sunny when they arrived, sometime just after noon. They landed in a dirty alleyway, uncleaned of dirt or grime in years.

“ _ Ugh. _ ” He could hear from Anti, an Jack’s soul shivered in agreement to Anti’s words. “ _ Tis is disgustin. _ ”

“ _ Can you really talk on that matter? _ ” Mad asked.

“ _ What’s the matter, Matter? _ ” Mare snickered (because he’s just _hilarious,_  using Mad’s other belief name, AntiMatter. He’s just the _funniest-_ ), because he was back, and he couldn’t contain his giddiness. He felt Nate’s soul thrumming happily in the familiar sunlight, which added to his giddiness. The souls didn’t know, though, they didn’t know about what happened to the other dimension.

Dark groaned. “ _ Come on, I can sense them. _ ”

It didn’t take long to get to the hospital they were at. They moved up towards a coma ward, which was very small. Did they have them all in the same room? Mare snorted at the thought. Having the four of them in the same hospital room while they went off trying to make their way back here, it was a movie trope in its most basic form.

“ _ Hey, look. _ ” Anti grunted in slight surprise, and Jack’s soul had brighten considerably. “ _ It’s a meatball. _ ”

Felix stood at a desk, talking in low tones to a nurse. He looked angry.

“It’s been months.” The nurse said. “Their brainwaves and heartbeats have been steadily dropping for weeks now. They’ll be medically brain dead in a few days, if not hours.”

“But you can’t stop the life support!” Felix almost hissed at the nurse. “I’ll pay for it if it’s a money problem, but I will not let anyone pull the plug on them! It’s not their time, I know it.”

Even though Mare didn’t really know anything about the guy, Nate only knowing slightly more, he felt a twinge of happiness at the sweds’ words.  The man had a kind heart.

“We don’t have much of a coma ward here.” The nurse said. “And they are not a regular case.” She leaned in closer, her voice barely registerable. “ _ Their condition worsens the farther they are away from each other! The government is suspicious. _ ”

“Jack’s not even an american citizen.” Felix knits his forehead together, getting more frustrated by the minute. “The only reason he’s still here is because he’s too medically unstable to be moved.”

Mare just can’t believe that he called it. Movie tropes ftw, he supposed.

He felt more then heard Nate laugh.

Following his senses, he came to a long room with several curtains blocking off beds from other beds. Out of the six bed room, two were empty.

The other four weren’t.

Mare almost gagged at the sight of his original body, how sickly it looked. His host’s mind has been in there for however long, but his soul, the one that fights off sickness and helps keep things working has been gone for so long. He could feel Nate’s soul look at his own body in disgust… as well as longing.

The others followed him into the room, glancing over their bodies with different reactions. Well, the energy itself didn’t react, but Mare could tell their feelings by how their host’s souls reacted, somewhat.

“ _ These bodies need some TLC. _ ” He spoke up. “ _ I’ll spend at least half of my energy making sure that body is up to code again. _ ”

Dark’s energy shook, as if disagreeing. “ _ We can’t heal them.” _

“ _ What? _ ” Anti sounded confused, and Jack’s soul dimmed, as if he was confused too.

“ _ We could use our powers freely in our other bodies because we had full control.”  _ Dark explained. _ “And we had full control because the original owner of that body didn’t have both a soul and a mind anymore. When we put their souls back with their minds, they’ll have full control again. We won’t be able to use any of our powers, like we couldn’t before. _ ”

“ _ Doing that would risk us absorbing either our host’s soul or mind. _ ” Mad added in quietly.

“ _ Then what do we do? _ ” Mare asked, and he could feel Nate’s fear of the idea. He had no way of blocking his host from hearing and seeing everything that was happening, even if he couldn’t communicate. He hated that.

Mad sighed, as if the thought that occurred to him was painful. The fact that Mat’s soul was shining a angry blaze told Mare that he didn’t like it either. “ _ There’s a way for us to not only heal these bodies with our energy, but for there to be no chance of us absorbing them in the process. _ ”

Every soul but Mat’s brightened up at that. “ _ What is it? _ ” Anti asked.

“ _ For them to absorb us instead. _ ”

It was uncanny how fast the souls all dimmed again. It was like all of them went into a tantrum of ‘that’s not happening’ at the same time. Mare felt gratitude towards his host’s soul for a moment.

“ _ That’s brilliant, actually. _ ” Dark murmured, and Mark’s soul spazzed in such a Mark way that the other souls lightened up just a little. “ _ If we let them absorb some of our energy, then we can use the rest to put them back where they’re meant to be. _ ”

“ _ What does that do to us, though? _ ” Anti asked. “ _ We’ll just be gone? _ ”

“ _ Maybe. _ ” Mad whispered, but that didn’t stop the second tantrum of the souls. “ _ We won’t be dead, but we’ll be merged with our host’s souls. Fit ending, I might say. We came from belief and the power of their souls, and we’ll end with their souls as well. _ ”

Mat’s soul was having a dance party, it seemed, and Mad seemed to enjoy how rant-y the soul was being, giggling sadly at it. Mad’s energy shifted, pulling Mat’s soul up to the front. The energy latched onto it, and suddenly, Mad looked smaller than before.

It was then that Mare realized he wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

He could almost hear Nate,  _ then don’t say goodbye- stay with me, _ but it just steeled him for what’s to come. It would be easier for them to readjust if the egos just took themselves out of the equation completely.

“ _ It seems to be working. _ ” Mad announced, and it looked to be. He was less than a quarter of his regular size, and Mat’s soul was burning like a bright sun. That didn’t stop the soul from protesting in it’s silent disco ball fury. “ _ I guess i have one chance to be sentimental before I finish this, huh? Just… goodbye… and thank you. _ ” Mare knew he had looked at them all, but he had finished staring at him.

Mare wanted to say something, or to stop him. Why did it seem so final, if he wasn’t dying? It felt like… the goodbye was permanent.

The small amount left of Mad’s energy flew slightly higher, and Mare watched as it dove headfirst into his original body’s chest. It was silent for only a moment, before the machines hooked up to him ticked a little faster, and color started to return to his face.

Seconds later, Mat’s eyes flew open, and he sat up with a gasp.

It worked.

They only had a few moments before someone (probably that nurse and Felix) came to see what the machine’s new racket was. Mare gave a solute towards the two other egos, not wanting to disturb them from saying their farewells.

He had just finish transferring his energy when Anti grunted. “ _ Don’ be emo, Mare. I expect ah goodbye. _ ”

So he gave off a smile that they couldn’t see, quietly saying ‘ _ see you. _ ’ before diving back into his host’s body as well.

And then… it was all just darkness.

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Felix opened the door quietly, before almost ripping the door off it’s hinges at seeing the others awake.

Jack grinned, yawning. “Never lemme say sleep is for the weak again, that nap was the shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh... best ending?
> 
> Shameless self promo! Uploaded second chapter of new story, find it in this series!
> 
> Epilogues next! I’ll upload them all at the same time. I hope I kept the mini storylines that I wanted to in here... but I’ll explain that more next time!


	35. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ending is always merely just a new beginning.

Turns out, they woke up a few days before Pax. Felix had turned up early so that he could check up on them. He wasn’t the only one, apparently.

When Felix and the nurse asked what happened that put them into their year long (“it was a year?! Holy shite-“) coma, they all played dumb. Maybe, years later, they would tell their close friends what happened, but no time soon.

To the four, it was like the coma never happened. They were all out of their beds minutes after waking up, but the nurse (and the doctor she called) didn’t want them to over stress themselves, so they had to stay in bed. They couldn’t even call love ones, the nurse did it for them, as well as Felix.

“Hey Felix.” Mark asked a good ten minutes after the rush in of the medical personnel. “Do you have a camera with you?”

And that’s how ‘ _We’ve been sleeping since last year what did we miss?_ ’ Video came to be on Felix’s channel and other social media.

Needless to say, the fans lost their shit.

“I’ve never seen so many ‘slamming their heads on keyboard’ comments before.” Nate murmured, scrolling through the phone he was able to finally use again. It had been around a day since they woke up. It was calm after visiting hours, but just a few hours before, almost every friend and family in the state had showed up, crying in joy and disbelieving of their sudden and miraculous recovery.

Jack laughed happily. “They’re all so happy that we’re back.”

Mat smiled. “They all care about us.”

Nate smiled as well, before sombering. “Have any of you heard from…” he trailed off.

None of them answered.

  


They were let out the next day, cleared and completely healthy. They went about their business for around half a week afterwards, closely monitored by the hospital. Jack wasn’t allowed to travel just yet, so he stayed at the hotel Felix booked for Pax.

The egos didn’t show up. They could all feel them, but it was like they weren’t completely themselves. If it weren’t for the fact that they could feel them, then they wouldn’t of known they were there at all.

They all tried ways of making them emerge without startling their viewers so much and causing suspicion. Mark started liking Darkiplier fanart more, even shouting some out at the end of his videos. Jack slipped some glitches into a horror game and referenced his Halloween video to get the fans interested. Nate even changed up the song he was working on before this had all happened, making it a little darker and crazier to grab Mare’s attention. Mat just outright said it in a livestream.

“Well, I did have a miraculous recovery.” He laughed at the comments asking about his health before turning back to surgeon simulator. “You see, I was sleeping for so long, I must’ve went a little _Mad_.”

Stephanie had looked at him, confused before it visibly clicked in her head.

He was overjoyed by the amount of ‘Madpat’ that showed up in the comment stream.

But none of them showed themselves. They didn’t have to worry about suspicious fans either, they were more concerned about how fast the four got back into video making (they’ve been stuck in their heads for a year now they’re bored-). Soon, Pax was over, and Jack was cleared to head back home. They met once more at a cafe by the airport to talk.

Felix gave them their space once they got there, waiting in the car as they talked. None of them brought it up until the end.

“Are we really going to pretend that it didn’t happen?” Nate said suddenly, stopping a conversation about meeting up again. “Because it did and pushing it aside won’t do anything.”

Jack blinked in surprise at the outburst. “We’re not tryin to pretend it didn’t happen, Nate.”

Mat shook his head. “I just want to look to the future, for now. I’ve been dwelling on the past for too long.”

“It’s just-“ Nate sighed, rubbing his temples. “It’s really not fair. They never really had a choice, they had to protect us, and they… died because of it!”

His eyes were watering as Mat placed a hand on his shoulder. “They aren’t dead, though. You feel him, we all feel them. They’re still here with us, I just think they’re too lazy to say anything.” He chuckled.

Nate gave him a smile, wiping at his eyes. When he heard a sniffle that was not his own, he looked up in surprise. Mark had steady streams of tears rolling down his face.

“Geez Merk.” Jack looked over. “You okay?”

“I’m just… really happy.” Mark rubbed his eyes, sniffling slightly. “We might’ve… l-lost our egos but… I think… I think they went happily…”

And they all felt the same way about that. They might’ve not known exactly what happened in that other dimension- their egos hid some stuff from them, but they got their host’s back to their bodies, and sacrificed so muc-

“Stop crying you fooker! All tis mushy human stuff makes me skin boil.”

Jack slapped a hand over his mouth, but the deed was done. Silence washed over the four, before Mat started laughing. Soon, the others joined in.

And they continued to laugh… for a long time afterwards as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the beginning is always merely just another story.


	36. The Video

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note, this timeline was set in the year 2018. It ends in January 2019.

_ We’ve been sleeping since last year what did we miss? _

_ Uploaded- 49 minutes ago _

_ Channel- Pewdiepie _

_ Date- February 14th, 2019 _

_ Views- 6.4M _

_ Likes- 1.3M Dislikes- 5K _

* * *

 

The video’s thumbnail was four old pictures of each of them put on a solid red screen, black scribble saying ‘bet you weren’t expecting this today.’ On the bottom. The first frame was a close up of Mark’s face.

The four had put on the clothes they had been wearing when this whole messed happened, which had been cleaned since. In the video, they all lounged on their own beds, Mark laying playfully sexual for a laugh at the camera, Jack’s legs dangled off the edge of his own bed, Mat was leaning against the backrest, and Nate was just sitting, shoving food into his mouth.

Mark did a seductive smile. “Hello there~” he couldn’t finish, and he and the two not eating all giggled. “It’s been a while!”

“Intro, go!” Felix was holding the camera it seemed, and he kept the camera pointed at Mark.

“Hello everybody! My name is Markipl-“

Felix tilted the camera at Jack, causing Mark to sputter. “Intro, go!”

“TOP OF THE MORNIN TO YA-“

“Too loud.” Felix turned to Mat. “Intro go!”

“Hello- Wait I have several different channels which one-“

He turned to Nate. “Intro, go!”

Nate kept on eating, looking at the camera and giving a swift wave.

“Nice one.” Felix snarked. “Now that everyone’s been introduced… why are we doing this again? You need to be resting.”

Mark pouted, flailing his arms. “I don’t wanna.”

Jack mimicked him. “I’m not tired!”

Nate just pointed at his food again, as if that explained everything.

Mat shrugged. “I need to catch up on the news. New games everywhere.” His face contorted into one of terror. “How many fnaf theories am I behind on now? I heard that Deltarune is out-“

“Oh really?” Jack asked. “That’s Toby Fox’s new game? Awesome!”

Felix sighed, but the underlining chuckle was easy to hear in the audio. The video was cut there, and Felix was talking at the point it jumped to. “-I’m going to recap everything important this year. And since the only things that really matter are YouTube, I’m going to recap YouTube.”

“YouTube Rewind.” Jack grinned.

The viewers could practically  _ feel  _ Felix’s cringe. “No, ugh, not that. YTRewind2018 made history. It’s the most dislike video on YouTube.” Quieter, he said. “It beat my own video by a landslide.”

It was quiet for a moment, before Nate raised his hand, like he was in a classroom. “Can I have some more food?”

The video cut again.

“KSI and Logan Paul fought.” Felix said. “They went boxing.”

“Seriously?” Jack said. 

The camera moved slightly as Felix nodded.

“Who lost?”

“Everyone that paid money to see it.”

Another cut, this one accompanied with the old duck sound he used several years ago to sometimes blur out his swears. Felix was feeling reminiscent, his viewers could tell.

“Logan Paul filmed a dead body in the suicide forest.”

“...no comment.”

Cut. Duck. Quack.

It cut back to the camera sitting on a table in front of Mat and Nate. Nate was still snacking on food.

“Can I have just one marshmallow?” Mat held out a hand. One of Nate’s friends brought (more like smuggled) in several different snacks for him, and a bag of marshmallows was one of them.

“No.” Was the muffled reply.

Mat paused, tilting his head. His eyes widened. “Is that Diet Coke?”

Nate froze, before slowly shaking his head. 

“You-“

Cut. Quack. Duck. Goose.

“I’m not going to be number 1 on YouTube for much longer.” Felix was holding the camera again.

“Who’s going to pass you?” Mat asked.

“A channel named T-Series.”

“...Who?”

Cut. Snap. Clip. Goose. Quack. Duck. Zip.

What was this editing?

“The media hates me.”

“I thought we were going to learn new things here.”

Cut. Bitch Lasagne. Duck. Goose. Quack. Zip. Snap. Clip.

“That’s everything that happened this year!”

“I highly doubt that.” Mark murmured. “Now, lemme get up and walk around!”

“No, you literally just woke up from a year long coma.”

“But it felt like a five minute snooze, I’m finnnnnnnne.”

The viewers could feel the dead look Felix was giving Mark at that moment. “Green Pewdiepie is so much better behaved than thanos Pewdiepie.”

“...What?”

“Oh wait, did Infinity War come out this year or last year?”

Some viewers blinked. Didn’t Felix not like Marvel? Did he watch infinity wars?

Blank looks all around.

“Oh, Mr Stark, I don’t feel so good.”

Cut. Not even a screen this time to show the weird things the cut was doing, just a change of video with a duck sticker and sound slapped on it.

“-And article 13 is going to ban memes from Europe.”

Jack squished his forehead. “Ban memes?”

“Oh yeah, and everything else we do on our channels. Say goodbye to your YouTube career.”

“...huh?”

_ Another cut. _

“I can edit this if you don’t have time.” Mark said, scooting up from where he sat on his bed.

“I can just have Brad 1 edit it.” Felix waved it away. “It’ll be fine.”

_ Help me I’m trapped and starving  _ appeared on the bottom for exactly a frame before disappearing.

“He loves editing my videos.”

_ I’m paid one meatball a week save me. _

Cut, but this time with a mustache and Mark’s regular laughing compilation sound.

“And that’s everything this time.”

This time the four weren’t laughing or playing around. They all had a warm feeling almost glowing from them, and it made viewers feel warmer.

“In all seriousness, thank you.” Mark smiled, fixing his hair (making it worse.).

“All the support we’ve seen.” Jack laughed. “Even though as we record this, you all still think we’re asleep… you guys never gave up on us.”

“Sorry for being away for so long.” Mat added on. “We’ll be back as soon as we can, but seriously guys, thank you. You’re a big reason for our recovery.”

“Quiet literally.” Nate smirked, finally putting down the food. He gave a grin when the other three looked at him, and the viewers all found that slightly strange. “I dunno if we’re going to do any other recordings like this. I want to leave this place as fast as possible.”

“I wanna see Chica!”

“I miss Skip!”

“I like animals!”

“Edgar-“

Cut. But with a big doggo named Edgar with a pink background. This time, the doggo picture spun while doing the superhero change areas sound in the cartoons.

The viewers just rolled their eyes at Brad 1.

“Who has the best outro?” Felix was asking.

Mark started to raise his hand smugly when Jack snorted. “All ya do it say ‘buh bye’ in ah goofy voice.”

“We can’t do your outro, Jack.” Felix said. “It’s to loud, and we’re in a hospital.”

Nate was, again, munching on food. He gave his bag a crack to gain attention, before pointing to the Theorist in the bed closest to him, turning back to his food afterwards.

“It’s a good outro.” Mark admitted.

Mat looked surprised. “What is this though? It’s not a game or film theory.”

“Coma theory.”

“Recap theory.”

Dream theory.”

“Sleep theory.”

“What did we miss theory.”

“I’ve been asleep for a while now theory.”

“Welcome to my house theory.”

“T-t-to-top of ta mornin ta ya theories.”

“Ello people my name is Markiplier theory.”

“The Jims theory.”

“100% verified vary real doctzar here theory.”

“Darkiplier theory.”

It quieted for a moment, and Mark had looked down at himself, as if hopeing for something to happen. He sulked slightly when nothing happened, but it was so quick that most viewers just ignored it.

Cut. Nothing but a cut.

“A coma theo- no.”

“A Jim theory- no that doesn’t work either.”

“Now that’s just a theory! A sleep theory! Thanks for watching!”

The rest of the video was Felix’s extra outro, and then at the very end, another small clip.

“I like dream theory best,”

“Oh shut up!”

* * *

 

_ Comments (49K) _

 

< _ I’m so happy they’re awake and healthy!!! _ >

Likes 4.1K

 

< _ I am actually crying rn I’m so happy that they’re ok _ >

Likes 3.2K

 

< _ They just woke up and already Mat wants to bring back his addiction and Nate’s eating junk food. Are we sure they ever left? _ >

Likes 2.1K

 

< _ jdnwndiwonfnwjandnwajyaaaaaasssssss! _ >

Likes 1.2K

 

< _ fndnaisndd wtf I just woke up I’m not readyyyyy skandjwkdmsksm> _

Likes 3.4K

 

< _ Comments _

_ They’re okay! 45% _

_ Jsjznsnj letter vomit 20% _

_ Mat’s addiction to Diet Coke/ Nate=food 15% _

_ Other= 15% _

_ These types 5% _ >

Likes 592


	37. The True End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give an author a pen and enough time, and they will tie up what’s important.

**_Why haven’t we don tis before?_ ** Anti asked, confused and surprise.

**_It’s an expirement._ ** Dark said, looking around.  **_Mark just added dream manipulation to my canon powers. He was hoping we would be able to communicate this way._ **

Anti looked around, arms crossed. His host was sleeping, and he felt that telltale pull from the soul, indicating a nightmare that was a little to much to just get through. He came to fix it, maybe talk to Jack, but the only one here was Dark.

He’s lucky he actually thought about changing his clothes once he entered the dream, because in the mindscape he was only wearing briefs. Or maybe it wasn’t lucky, Anti can‘t decide yet. Either way, it would’ve been funny.

Anti crosses his arms, conjuring a chair to sit in.  **_So, what brings ye here?_ **

**_Am I not allowed here?_ **

**_No! You are._ ** Anti said, to quickly for his own liking. He’s happy to see Dark- it’s rather boring and lonely in his host’s head. His host has made a habit to visit the states at every chance, so that Anti won’t be completely shut off from his… friends. But still, that was only once or twice a year.

JJ’s gone quiet.

He really… doesn’t like being alone.

**_Well then._ ** Dark said, a small smile gracing his features.  **_I guess you do want me here as well._ ** He paused for a moment, basking in the indignant look Anti flashed him.  **_Guess I’ll have to visit some more._ **

Anti wanted to scoff and hold his ground, but he finally had another face to talk to that wasn’t his own.  **_Guess you will._ **

The split second of confusion Dark had showed him that he had accidentally one up’d him. Eh, he’ll take it.

And he’ll hold Dark to it as well. He’ll make sure that Dark keeps him company.

He’ll make sure, or his name isn’t Anti-fuckin-septiceye.

  
  
  


Mad was used to being bored after a while, but ever since coming back, he’s had to much in his mind.

His energy was slowly building back up, mostly thanks to his host. All of the ego’s hosts had started to encourage the talk and theory of alter egos, Mat even did an entire theory on it- mostly one focused on Dark and Anti, but the hints he spread through it for Mad himself, even a bat could see it. Not to mention the fact that he brought up the FNAF musical and linked the extended version in the description.

At the moment, Mat and Nate were chatting with Stephanie. Something that happened during their time in the other world made the host’s stick closer together for some reason- even Mad didn’t understand it.

Anyway, Mad was careful as he moved himself to the forefront of Mat’s mind. He felt his conscience greet him, but Mat didn’t speak to him at all. Looking out into the world, he sensed around, trying to get on estimate of Mare’s energy while also greeting him.

Mare didn’t answer, but Mad knew he was there, so he just waited, going back onto what kept most of his intention nowadays.

Knowledge.

Figures.

The base housing the vortex seemed to be connected to the mainframe of the government… and the databases held there were extensive and detailed. Every single thing that could be known or recorded about that world was somewhere in that mainframe, including encrypted files.

And Mad absorbed it  _ all. _

He wasn’t even 15% of the way through it all. It took him days just to organize it all within his energy, which was hard because it was tempting to store some information in Mat’s long term memory. He didn’t, but that made everything take even longer.

He was cracking the last one of his ‘priority’ files- the files he was most interested about- when he felt something come in contact with his aura. So absorbed in what he was doing, he jumped, causing Mat to visibly flinch.

Stephanie asked him if he was okay, and when he gave a lame excuse, both she and Nate arched an eyebrow. When he admitted that it was Mad, Nate openly laughed.

**_Warning next time?_ ** Mad said as he connected his own energy to Mare, forcing his words through his own energy’s aura to Mare’s.

**_Nah,_ **  Mare said.  **_that was funny. What are you so focused on?_ **

**_An idea._ ** Mad started, before taking one of the encrypted files he had decoded, shoving the information through his energy to Mare.  **_For a collaborative project._ **

Mare absorbed the information he had given him, staying silent for a moment before sighing.  **_What’s the project?_ **

**_It’d be a thing for the fans. Not a video game, per say, but something like what my host does when he makes a theorist gateway._ ** Mad explained.  **_But instead of it being random gaming questions, it’ll be more of a quest… a quest to cure a disease._ **

**_This sounds complex._ ** Mare knew where he was going with this, Mad could feel it through their connected auras.  **_The disease your talking about…_ **

**_The same one found in that other world._ ** Mad nodded.  **_The protagonist -the fan- will have to travel around the alternate dimension, getting help from four distinctive agents to find the cure for an almost zombie like apocalypse. Free, of course, since I can program it myself-_ **

Mare was oddly silent, which lead Mad to trail off. It took a moment, before Mare spoke.  **_You’re such a softie._ **

**_What?_ ** Mad asked, oviously confused.

**_That dimension is gone, but you want it to be remembered._ ** Mare said.  **_You’re not doing this to gain more energy or because you’re bored- you don’t want them to be forgotten._ **

Mad scoffed **_You’re overthinking it._ **

**_Am I?_ ** Mare asked.  **_I know you feel guilty about what happened. And you would want someone to remember you too. You wouldn’t of shared the file with me if not._ **

**_I thought you deserved to know._ **

**_You didn’t want to be the only one to knew this._ **

The file Mad gave Mare. It was Agent Song’s file.

Mare was overthinking it, Mad knew. Mad didn’t care about the other dimension- his job was just to protect his host from harm, which he did, if badly. He didn’t care.

But in the vortex… the sudden silence, like everyone was holding their breath. Mad could feel,  **_could actually feel_ ** every single one of those lives disappear. No heaven, no afterlife, no nothing. They were all gone, and for a millisecond, they all felt pain. Every animal, every plant, bacteria, human, infected, even those who weren’t on earth. They all felt pain and Mad felt it too.

Stephanie asked Mat if he was okay, and Mat confusingly said he was. She pointed out that he was crying. He hadn’t realized.

**_Your host betrays your emotions._ ** Mare said softly.

Mad didn’t answer, because he didn’t have to. Mare’s aura enveloped Mat’s body, silent for his host but warm for Mad. A hug.

...he likes hugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you’ve all enjoyed. It was a pleasure writing this, and I loved reading your comments and feedback whenever I posted. I don’t know if this’ll be the end of this version of the egos, but it’s not the end of me writing them. This is a part of a series. I’ll see you all soon, in another story.


End file.
